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Sarah Palin, Treehugger and Planet Green. Strange Bedfellows? You betcha.

Posted on | March 30, 2010 | No Comments

What do Sarah Palin, Treehugger and Planet Green have in common? A lot more than I would have imagined a week ago.

Last Saturday evening the very Green and caring Discovery Channel sent along a World Wildlife Federation tweet that urged “Don’t forget Earth Hour/8:30 local time”. I felt all warm and fuzzy.

I imagine that sometime soon Discovery Communications, owner of the Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, Animal Planet, Planet Green and green digital media pioneer Treehugger will be sending along another helpful message. Something like “Don’t forget to tune in to tonight’s premiere of ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ in HD.”

Discovery is reportedly paying Palin over $1 million an episode for an exclusive eight part series on TLC, produced by reality TV veteran Mark Burnett of Survivor and Apprentice “fame”.

In the words of Discovery Communications COO Peter Liguori, the series will “…reveal Alaska’s powerful beauty as it has never been filmed, and as told by one of the state’s proudest daughters.” Liguori, former president of entertainment for a unit of Newscorp, joined Discovery in January 2009 and also serves as chairmen of Discovery’s content committee.

Palin’s environmental track record has been the subject of endless commentary and is reason enough for Discovery to shun this questionable “opportunity.” What is even more disturbing is the fact that she has now placed herself at the very heart of what is an increasingly ugly and dangerous social movement which seems on the verge of moving from violent rhetoric (much of it Palin’s own) to actual violence. To stand with Palin at this moment in American history, providing millions of fresh dollars and an additional platform to her, is a clear political act. They were so determined to do this that they even had to prevail in a bidding war with A&E.

We all need to take a realty check when it comes to Discovery Communications and its family of media assets.  I understand that Discovery is a large publicly traded corporation with various properties that have been carefully designed to exploit various niches. But there is no question that the company has attempted to position itself as an environmentally sensitive thought leader, making much of its 2007 purchase of Treehugger and the 2008 launch of Planet Green.

When a company very publicly builds its business on environmental values in an effort to achieve some sort of competitive advantage, that’s fine with me if those values are for real. “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” suggests that Discovery is more about Greenwashing than Green.

I am hardly the only one who is disturbed by this move by Discovery. But few seem willing to make a connection between this decision and their Green brands. In the end, all of the dollars sloshing around Discovery, whether related to Palin, Treehugger or Planet Green, contribute to the same corporate bottom line. If a profit is made at say Treehugger, those funds could be used to pay Sarah Palin. If the Palin series makes money, it could be deployed to cover Planet Green’s losses. To suggest that shared ownership and shared bottom lines don’t really matter in the media world, is naive.

I will be the first to say that Treehugger and Planet Green have been valuable players in the wide but generally very thin green media landscape. In particular, I have long admired Treehugger’s vision and vitality.

But I dropped by Treehugger’s homepage today to see whether they had the institutional transparency to allow the large Treehugger community a chance to participate in the Palin debate raging outside its gates. They did and they didn’t.  To their credit they are allowing some discussion to surface back in their forum, safely out of sight of most of their visitors. There is not a peep on Planet Green.

I suspect no one is angrier at the Discover/Palin deal than those dedicated staffers at their Green brands. I also do not doubt that for them to speak out right now would result in their firing. But that is exactly the point, isn’t it?  There is a difference between a corporately controlled green media company and the many authentic independent media voices out there reporting and writing about the environment and sustainability. I include a few of the latter on my blogroll.

OK.

In the spirit of “maybe I’m missing the point,” I would like to make some helpful suggestions for other great Discovery shows by Sarah Palin: For Animal Planet, how about “The Thrill and Compassion of Aerial Wolf Hunting,” for the Science Channel: “Profiles in Courage: Climate Change Deniers Speak Out,” for the Military Channel: “Reload!: Democrats and Other Traitors in the Crosshairs,” for Planet Green “The Growing Threat of Buluga Whales, Polar Bears and Sockeye Salmon,” for Investigation Discovery: “Expose: Obama’s Secret Socialist Masters,” for Discovery Kids: “Does Your Teacher Support a One -World Government?” and for Discovery Health: “Obamacare: How to Prepare Your Grandparents for their Death Panel Interview.”

Category: Media
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