Download issue (PDF) - Nieman Foundation - Harvard University

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