The news media never shy from a dramatic image for a story. Bioengineering has been an easy mark with images of Dr. Frankenstein, playing God, and "unnaturally" manipulating nature. "Who's Afraid of Frankenfood?" proclaimed Time magazine [1]. Another Time article was titled "Alien Seed?" [2] while "It's Rape of One Form or Another," from a British newspaper plays on the name of the plant that produces rapeseed, or canola, oil to make a point [3]. Perhaps the entire debate can be summed up in one New York Times headline: "We Can Engineer Nature. But Should We?" [4].

Many news reports, especially in the United States, have been protechnology and pro-industry. James Freeman, in "You're Eating Genetically Modified Food," [5] argues that all the foods that we eat today are genetically modified (GM) and that there is no difference between selective breeding and genetic engineering. "Have you ever seen corn in its natural state without genetic modification? It's disgusting. We're talking about that nasty, gnarled, multi-colored garbage used as ornamentation in Thanksgiving displays. The fear mongers should eat that the next time they want to criticize technology," he says. Or, as Time put it, contemporary corn is "nothing more than grass with monstrously hypertrophied seeds," and that "the same kind of tampering produced most other domesticated plants and animals. Genetic engineering, say its advocates, merely takes the process a giant step forward" [6].

Proponents of GM food biotechnology have tended to paint GM food as only a minor change from "ordinary" agriculture and see enormous possibilities in what could be added from "foreign" genetic material. Gregg Easterbrook, a senior editor of the New Republic, writing in the New York Times, foresees vitamin-A- and iron-enhanced rice, allergen-free peanuts, hepatitis-B-vaccine-bearing bananas, and reduced pesticide use, all of which would benefit the Third World [7]. The Council for Biotechnology Information, an industry group, has recently been airing television commercials promoting these and other benefits of bioengineering. Their Web site is practically Pollyanna-like in its support of biotechnology. Monsanto, a major player in the genetically modified seed business, ran ads in Britain claiming that "worrying about starving future generations won't feed them. Food biotechnology will." Newspaper coverage noted that "Development agencies pointed out that people starve not because there is an absolute shortage of food (the world currently produces a surplus), but because food and the means to produce it are concentrated in the hands of the rich and powerful," [8] i.e., Western corporations like Monsanto.

Furthermore, genetic technology is owned - control of it remains with the corporation, not with the farmer. Saving seeds from year to year, which many farmers do, becomes an issue. Monsanto's "Terminator" technology makes succeeding generations of seeds sterile, which would have made seed saving impossible. While Monsanto has abandoned this technology, the original developer, Delta and Pine Land Company, has said it will continue to do so. Monsanto has said it may pursue other means to its goal - forcing farmers to buy new seed every year. "Monsanto obtained a U.S. patent for the gene which gives plants resistance to the active ingredient in Roundup. Planting saved seed with that gene, let alone selling it, without a license from Monsanto puts a grower in violation of patent law. It's unclear how much effort seed companies or Monsanto will put on policing the market for saved seed," noted Farm Journal. [9] Gill Lacroix, who works for Friends of the Earth, said in Time: "Let's not fool ourselves. Monsanto is not in this to feed the world or improve the environment. The bottom line is to improve their balance sheet and profits for their shareholders" [10].

While control of seed stock has been reported on as a business issue, the related scientific issue, genetic diversity, has been almost totally ignored in the mainstream press. Reduced genetic diversity increases species' vulnerability to new threats. Environmentalists have long been concerned about threats to genetic diversity, even before the current biotechnology developments. Food Monitor, in 1981, pointed out that "without this diversity our food crops would quickly succumb to disease. Chemical pesticides could not protect us against such a genetically uniform crop system" [11]. The Irish potato famine in the 1840s, among other disasters, was the result of "overdependence on genetically uniform crops." More recent observers have made similar comments. But there has been virtually nothing in the mainstream press.

Press coverage of GM food has often been reduced to a simple "look how great technology is" or "it's good for business." Popular Science, in the article, "Genes: They're What's for Dinner," envisions a future where "crops engineered with genes that resist cold, drought, or other adverse weather conditions can boost crop yields with less money and effort. For consumers that could mean cheaper food. Such crops would help feed and better nourish people in developing nations, such as drought-ridden Africa. For the future, expect foods that can help prevent cancer, fruits and vegetables that deliver vaccines, and crops that even make their own fertilizer." [12] The New York Times recently reported that some biotech firms are proposing to use crops to grow vaccines and other pharmaceuticals. One worry, though, is that these modifications could end up in the food supply through genetic drift or by some other means [13].

Genetic drift has also been an issue in relation to organic produce. Organic farmers have been particularly concerned about "genetic pollution" of their crops and there was much outcry at initial U.S. proposals that organic produce be allowed to contain GM products. Responding to test plantings of GM crops, one British journalist argued such field tests were a hoax: "The technology is designed to hurt wildlife. Either it works, in which case its widespread deployment will be environmentally catastrophic, or it does not, in which case it will not be used. It seems to me that trials like this have precious little to do with science, and everything to do with politics. The widespread genetic contamination these experiments could cause will do the biotechnology companies no harm. They will be able to argue that the horse has already bolted, so there is no further point in keeping the stable door shut" [14]. The recent proposal for genetically altered salmon, which made page 1 of the New York Times, adds fuel to this fire [15]. GM salmon could, and probably would, escape into the wild; there is some real concern that they would outcompete and eliminate wild type salmon.

Reports that Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn could kill Monarch larvae, while generating an initial splash, were, in the long run, downplayed. Farm Journal noted that it was no surprise that Bt corn killed Monarch caterpillars, "Since Bt is designed to target caterpillars. Instead, the issue is whether there is exposure in real field situations, and, if so, whether it might be limited or mitigated by taking precautions" [16]. In the heart of the farm belt, the Wichita Eagle noted that the EPA and other researchers have questioned the Monarch study "saying it was doubtful many butterflies would be exposed to toxic corn pollen" [17].

In Britain, Arpad Puztai's research on rats fed GM potatoes, [18] published in the premier medical journal Lancet, was taken up as demonstrating the dangers of GM foods, but the research was soon decried among scientists as quite flawed. The editor of Plant Physiology was quoted in the New York Times saying that the experiment was so poorly planned that "This would never have been published in a plant biology journal" [19]. The New Scientist noted, "Were the GM potatoes toxic? On the basis of Pusztai's evidence, it's impossible to say. In fact, his results support only one obvious conclusion: rats hate potatoes" [20]. The article goes on to note that testing even regular food is problematic: "It is often difficult to feed lab animals enough GM fodder, whether or not they find it palatable, to see if it has undesirable effects compared with unmodified food."

Janet Bainbridge, chair of a British government advisory committee on GM food, said that GM foods were "as safe, if not safer' than conventional foods. But there continues to be a great deal of inventive media coverage." Some U.S. food corporations, worried about consumer acceptance of GM products, have said, for now, they won't use GM grains. A spokesman for Gerber Foods said that safety wasn't the issue: "We didn't eliminate them out of safety concerns. We just wanted to take baby food out of the debate; baby food is a very sensitive area." While this has been presented as a consumer issue, in fact, it has received little play outside of the business pages, and it is unclear if U.S. consumers will be concerned, although farmers are worried that there won't be a market for their crops.

Europeans have been more concerned about GM foods because they have less trust in their food supply. Recent incidents, such as the outbreak of "Mad Cow" disease in Britain, and lax governmental responses to those incidents, have made Europeans much more aware, and wary, of their foods. On the other hand, the American food supply is plentiful and generally considered safe by most Americans. As Wayne Falda, a staff writer for the South Bend Tribune, said, "Americans are generally satisfied (satiated too) with the food supply in the USA. We have always had a plentiful supply of inexpensive food. This cornucopia has long been taken for granted. Farm-related stories are not apt to get a big readership because our farmers are taken for granted too." Genetically modified food has been seen as a "farm story" and thus the issue has little resonance in a largely urban culture. Meg Gordon, a science writer in Oregon, adds, "many editors traditionally glaze over when you talk about plants."

GM food made a big splash in the news in the World Trade Organization talks, and the succeeding Biotechnology Conference in Montreal this past January. Until recently, this was one of the few occasions that GM food had made the front page in the U.S., and it did so over the period of a week. But scientific issues were not the main focus. The discussion of safety was a stand-in for trade issues: Will Europe and the Third World be able to shut out GM products, many of which come from the U.S. or U.S. companies? "We would be willing to put up with quite a bit of nonsense in return for predictability," said L. Val Gidding of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group. The final agreement dealt with the "real" issues of trade, not science, and it was as a trade issue that it was reported.

Although some real scientific issues exist about GM foods, media coverage has only occasionally focused on real scientific issues. Only occasionally have either protechnology or antitechnology articles focused on scientific environmental or food-safety issues. The latter has not been covered much at all, although it is what most consumers are concerned about. Instead, most media coverage has been at the level of name-calling ("Frankenfood" vs. "Luddites"). The questions about GM food are real. These issues are not easy to elucidate, but they have mostly been lost amid posturing and grandstanding by both supporters and opponents of GM foods. The news media have generally followed suit, either supporting wholeheartedly new technology, as much U.S. coverage does, or being extremely wary of it. In the end, GM crops are unlikely to be either an unequivocal benefit or an unparalleled disaster, but like industrialization or agriculture itself, a little of both.