Download issue (PDF) - Nieman Foundation - Harvard University

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Environment Reporting Brazilian rain forest: When I visited the Brazilian rain forest after the Earth Summit, I felt no rain and saw no forest. What I witnessed was the epicenter of hell. To children there, who were sentenced to a life of making charcoal, the word “sting” held far more meaning than the man, Sting, who was fighting to save the rain forest, did. Families live in company-made makeshift huts set back from the burning edge and appear like ghosts as the wind shifts. —S.G. Mississippi rash: Virgie Peavy’s body became covered with rashes after she ate collard greens picked from her backyard in Columbia, Mississippi. Her yard adjoins the former site of Reichhold Chemical Inc., which produced a substance used in wood preservation. In 1977 an explosion occurred at the Reichhold Chemicals Inc. facility, and area residents said they were allowed to return to their homes while the fire still burned. A decade later, this was declared a Superfund site and 3,900 barrels of hazardous waste were unearthed. “The doctor wanted tests. I didn’t have the money,” said Peavy, when I met her in 1991. “Then I got a settlement. I didn’t never read it. I was too greedy. But now I’m sick. I got problems with nerves. It got worse.” It is not unusual for toxic waste sites to be found in communities of color or in places where poor and lowincome families live. For big business, these communities provide the path of least resistance. Today, the Peavy family lives in the same house in Columbia, but Virgie Peavy is gone. “She got cancer all over her body,” said Roosevelt Peavy, her son. “That settlement she got was small. She never got rid of the rashes, and then she passed away.” —S.G. Photos by Stan Grossfeld. 44 Nieman Reports / Winter 2002
Environment Reporting Missing the ‘Big Story’ in Environment Coverage ‘… if we don’t do a better job of telling the story, devastation of the environment will be partly our fault.’ By Charles Alexander In a previous issue of Nieman Reports, Paul Steiger, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, objected to what he called “a spate of breast-beating among news media critics on how the press ‘missed’ the Enron scandal.” He pointed out that the Journal, after overlooking Enron’s follies for a while, eventually broke the story big-time. Reading Steiger’s words sent my mind on a flight of fancy that conjured up a vision of our planet 100 years into the future. Earth is in a real mess. It’s unbearably hot. What were once coastal cities are swamped by rising seas. Fear of mass starvation haunts the globe. Tropical diseases are spreading uncontrollably, and the last tiger on earth has just died at the St. Louis Zoo. The Nieman Foundation for journalism (still around in the 22nd century) has convened a conference at the new Harvard campus in Worchester, Massachusetts (Cambridge, alas, is underwater) where scholars, broadcasters and editors gather to discuss what role the press played in humanity’s poor stewardship of the environment. Media representatives present evidence that beginning in the late 20th century and continuing through the next, television, radio and print news organizations, not to mention the Internet, carried numerous stories about global warming, loss of biodiversity, forest destruction, overfishing and the like. “We ran the stories,” the media apologists contend, “but the public and the politicians didn’t pay attention.” At the end, participants conclude that “what happened wasn’t our fault.” But maybe it was. There is a strong case to be made that journalists are missing the environmental story, and if we don’t do a better job of telling the story, devastation of the environment will be partly our fault. The Big Story Just what is the story that’s not being told well enough today? It’s about the things human beings do to the planet each and every day and what they are not willing to do to confront the consequences of their actions. Humanity is, without doubt, altering the composition of the atmosphere and almost certainly changing the climate. Humans are wiping out other species at a rate not seen since the demise of dinosaurs. We continue to chop down irreplaceable old-growth forests. We use up natural resources faster than nature can renew them. Population growth is so rapid and our appetites so insatiable that even vast oceans show signs of exhaustion. Certainly the collective experience and consequences of these activities qualify as a “big story.” While every major network and virtually every newspaper and newsmagazine has covered each of these problems, stories examining the interaction and cumulative effect of these problems are not being brought to public attention in any big or consistent way. News reports about the environment are scattered, sporadic and mostly buried. They are also completely overshadowed by media obsessions with the “big” stories of our time—stories that are so big they need only one name—O.J., Monica and Chandra. Of course, what happened on and because of September 11 is a genuinely big story. It is understandable that since then media have been tightly focused on the war on terrorism, homeland security, and possible war with Iraq. But environmental policy, with its shortterm and long-term consequences, remains important and relevant to the lives of every American, as well as to every resident of the planet. For example, it is time for the press to find better ways to bring to public attention the fact that a more rational U.S. energy policy—one that would reduce fossilfuel use—would not only help in the fight against climate change, but would also make the United States less dependent on Middle Eastern oil and less vulnerable to terrorism. As I wrote in Time in 2001, “except for nuclear war or a collision with an asteroid, no force has more potential to damage our planet’s web of life than global warming.” The war on terrorism might be a bigger story right now, but it probably won’t be in the long run. Unless terrorists detonate dozens of nuclear bombs, climate change will someday be a much bigger story, one that could adversely impact billions of people. By definition, news focuses on what happened yesterday and today. But, as journalists, do we fulfill our obligation if we lose sight of the potential impact today’s actions have on tomorrow? With this crisis, there isn’t the option of waiting until the problems become Nieman Reports / Winter 2002 45
Page 1 and 2: NIEMAN REPORTS THE NIEMAN FOUNDATIO
Page 3 and 4: Vol. 56 No. 4 Winter 2002 NIEMAN RE
Page 5 and 6: Creating a New Web of Connections T
Page 7 and 8: Investigating What Happens to Refug
Page 9 and 10: INS Coverage ‘Freedom of the Pres
Page 11 and 12: The People’s Right to Know vs. Go
Page 13 and 14: INS Coverage An immigration attorne
Page 15 and 16: Why Reporters Should Want to Cover
Page 17 and 18: INS Coverage tion that lit up the p
Page 19 and 20: INS Coverage foreign-born populatio
Page 21 and 22: INS Coverage gone to school here, a
Page 23 and 24: INS Coverage Phoutone Chanthabouala
Page 25 and 26: INS Coverage Juan Belalcazar, a 23-
Page 27 and 28: INS Coverage be interviewed. (Permi
Page 29 and 30: By Richard Read INS Coverage WATCHD
Page 31 and 32: tor job, as standing by while a cow
Page 33 and 34: focused on salmon, wildlife and cul
Page 35 and 36: Environment Reporting beat might eb
Page 37 and 38: Environment Reporting safeguard the
Page 39 and 40: Environment Reporting ing a scienti
Page 41 and 42: Environment Reporting • It incorp
Page 43 and 44: Environment Reporting for many an i
Page 45: Environment Reporting China polluti
Page 49 and 50: Environment Reporting Scientists ag
Page 51 and 52: Environment Reporting Writing about
Page 53 and 54: Environment Reporting Journalists C
Page 55 and 56: After September 11, Headlines About
Page 57 and 58: Environment Reporting videotapes de
Page 59 and 60: Environment Reporting A male quetza
Page 61 and 62: Environment Reporting Earth Allianc
Page 63 and 64: Connecting Scientific Data to Real
Page 65 and 66: Environment Reporting A fire tug fi
Page 67 and 68: Environment Reporting cult today. E
Page 69 and 70: Environment Reporting before becomi
Page 71 and 72: Environment Reporting Networks Aren
Page 73 and 74: Environment Reporting other medium.
Page 75 and 76: A Beat About Business and the Envir
Page 77 and 78: Environment Reporting threatening t
Page 79 and 80: Environment Reporting Antarctica Fr
Page 81 and 82: Glaciers and Sea Level Change Envir
Page 83 and 84: Environment Reporting The U.N. home
Page 85 and 86: Environment Reporting Reporting on
Page 87 and 88: Environment Reporting Reluctance to
Page 89 and 90: Environment Reporting Types of Sate
Page 91 and 92: Environment Reporting Wildfires bur
Page 93 and 94: Words & Reflections The Consequence
Page 95 and 96: Words & Reflections buying newspape
Page 97 and 98:
Words & Reflections A War Correspon
Page 99 and 100:
Words & Reflections ger in disallow
Page 101 and 102:
Words & Reflections ness and the da
Page 103 and 104:
The Worthiness of Bollinger’s Cha
Page 105 and 106:
Journalism Education require the Ph
Page 107 and 108:
Journalism Education nalism school.
Page 109 and 110:
Journalism’s Road to Becoming a P
Page 111 and 112:
Journalism Education perament—see
Page 113 and 114:
Nieman Notes Nieman Notes Compiled
Page 115 and 116:
Nieman Notes opment Program to fill
Page 117 and 118:
Nieman Notes background information
Page 119:
Nieman Notes Zimbabwe Journalist Ma
show all

Download issue (PDF) - Nieman Foundation - Harvard University

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?