Missing the ‘News’

Howard Rosenberg’s slap-on-the-wrist review of ABC’s “The Koppel Report: News From Earth” summarizes well the fundamental defect of information received through television reportage (TV Review, Dec. 26).

The negativity of the environmental information offered on the show, though true, did not present the rest of the story--the solutions being pressed to action by many environmental groups.

What was missing most in “News From Earth” was the corrective information many disaster-thwarting environmental groups consider most imperative--solutions that can avert impending disaster.

What Koppel needs is a “News From Earth, Part II,” concerned with information on the activities presented by environmental groups around the world; activities meant to correct abusive environmental conditions. To do that would constitute a complete job of “reportage.” And it would also be a greater accomplishment by far of the journalist’s true, rather than self-righteous, consideration of public welfare.

Neither doom-saying nor pap handouts will serve us. Presenting the facts about organizations working to engage people in an ecological turnaround would be the other side of the “News From Earth.”

GENE MASLOW, Director

Artists for the Environment

Laguna Beach