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The CMI Stock Fund
For information about the Media Stock Fund, write Barry Karr at skeptinq@aol.com or (716) 636-1425 x217.In its latest effort in the battle against fringe-science TV, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and its "media watch-dog" arm, the Council for Media Integrity (CMI), announced in early May the establishment of the "Media Stock Fund." Aimed at providing leverage for CSICOP's response to the television industries lucrative commercial marketing of fringe science and psuedoscience, CMI is asking friends and supporters to help it aquire common stock in media conglomerate companies. The Media Stock Fund will allow CSICOP and the CMI to take part in shareholder meetings, where it can question the increasing infatuation with the paranormal in television programming.
"We are deliberately targeting each of the major television networks and well-known media conglomerates - Westinghouse (CBS), General Electric (NBC), NewsCorp (Fox), Time Warner (WB, Turner Broadcasting), and Disney (ABC)," says Paul Kurtz, chairman of CSICOP. "The media have now virtually replaced the schools, colleges, and universities as the main source of information for the general public. The irresponsability of the media in the area of science and the paranormal is a world wide problem. But it especially applies to the United States, where the media have been distorting science and, in particular, presenting psuedoscience as genuine science. Indeed, we are appalled by the number of 'documentaries,' which are really entertainment programs, presenting fringe science as real science."
The practice of organizing shareholder response within a company is common among advocacy groups that seek socially responsable corporate conduct through shareholder-passed resolutions. As a share-holder, CSICOP and the CMI will have opportunities to attend shareholder meetings, submit viewpoints to shareholder publications, and sponsor shareholder resolutions. While exercising these and other rights, CSICOP will be representing a broad, international constituency who support the critical investigation of the paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific viewpoint to the public at large. "The fund will allow us to make shareholder meetings into accountablility sessions for the media giants when they package superstition and psuedoscience as fact," Kurtz said.
"We realize that the media are being attacked from all sides, but we think that a plea for raising the level of underatanding of science should be heard."
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