Current affairs programs do expose corporate misdeeds, accidents and environmental and health problems resulting from unsafe products and production processes but in a way that does not call into question "fundamental political or economic structures and institutions" (Kellner 1990, pp. 107-8).

By treating business wrongdoings as isolated deviations from the socially beneficial system of 'responsible capitalism', the media overlook the systemic features that produce such abuses and the regularity with which they occur. Business 'abuse' is presented in the national press as an occasional aberration, rather than as a predictable and common outcome of corporate power and the business system. The expose that treats the event as an isolated and atypical incident implicitly affirms the legitimacy of the system...(Parenti 1986, pp. 110-11)

Environmental disasters are not followed up and environmental revelations that are uncovered by journalists are "seldom incorporated into the body of knowledge and perspective" that environmental journalists draw on in their work. Miranda Spencer, writing in Extra!, gives the example of the exposé in Christian Science Monitor that air pollution reductions reported by corporations were "based on paperwork tricks" which failed to inform later reporting of the Clean Air Act. (Spencer 1992, p. 13)

Former Boston Globe journalist Dianne Dumanoski admits, with reference to environmental reporting, "Our coverage is all too often driven by our business's appetite for novelty and conflict. We often don't do a good job of reporting on the science of complicated issues, and we generally do a lousy job of helping our audience understand uncertainty, which is the central dilemma faced in making environmental policy."

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References:

Dumanoski, Dianne, 1994, Mudslinging on the Earth-beat, The Amicus Journal, 14(4), pp. 40-41.

Kellner, Douglas, 1990, Television and the Crisis of Democracy (Boulder: Westview Press).

Parenti, Michael, 1986, Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media (New York: St Martin's Press).

Spencer, Miranda, 1992, 'U. S. Environmental Reporting: The Big Fizzle:', Extra! (April/May).