M - Antennae The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture

coverage shaped in this way appeared less frequently in
the early 1990s, on account of the changes implemented
to restructure the BBC and the increasing popularity of
satellite television which both appeared to impact on the
operations of Newsround as with other BBC
programmes. These changes in particular sparked a
concern in the newsroom over the developing
competition from other programmes and their routine
share of the audience. As a consequence, the core newsmaking
ideas were re-examined and a larger exercise
initiated to review Newsround’s provision as well as the
presumed newsworthiness of story types that often
featured within the bulletin. The congruence between
the children’s interests and the environmental story was
addressed frequently in these discussions which, having
reviewed the matter, facilitated a general agreement that
the environmental news agenda was no longer reflecting
the news interests of the programme’s young news
consumers, and changes to this coverage were made.
The modern agenda
As is indicated above, the programme’s news policy
changed direction slightly in the 1990s and, with this, a
new understanding of the newsworthiness of
environmental issues was developed, as the producer
recalls below:
We always laugh if there is a panda story in
the programme just because Newsround has
been associated with animals as they are
targets for children. Perhaps what we have
done is moved off in another direction to
look at what really interests children rather
than making an assumption […] it will
dramatically interest them.
Newsround producer 1
At this time, a view emerged of children as less
interested in environmental matters generally which
challenged their place within the new and modern
Newsround news agenda. As well as children becoming
less interested in this subject matter, this also suggested
that old, and seemingly tired, environmental coverage
lacked the preferred newly created upbeat and fastmoving
Newsround news style to be included. It was
agreed, on this basis, that action was required to change
the complexion of the programme’s environmental
output at the very least.
Shaping environmental coverage for an
uninterested audience
As I have discussed in depth elsewhere (Matthews 2005,
2009), the changes in the production of BBC Newsround
in the 1990s had a considerable impact on the
programme’s reporting generally and more specifically on
the presence of long running environmental issues within
the agenda. Following the policy to neglect those issues
considered as ‘overexposed’ at the time was a
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particularised strategy implemented to shape others with
a particularised news style. After this point and when
featuring in the programme, information on
environmental issues appeared in an upbeat news
presentational style in a bid to maintain the attention of a
young news consumer who was believed to be
uninterested in environmental matters, generally. The
selected issue needed to be simple and dramatic to
create interest in this case and thus was shaped into a
form that heightened the ‘drama’ of the despoliation of
the environment and placed a disproportionate focus on
the environmental character as under threat.
Additionally the reporting that followed
increased the frequency of appeals to naturalness or the
human qualities of animals to bring alive a sense of their
relationship with the audience as well as to intensify a
sense of injustice at the destruction of the natural world.
Also human beings were presented as perpetrators
within this environmental drama and their actions
explained without recourse to a wider context and, on
occasion, even vilified for profiting from environmental
despoliation. Completing these simplistic and dramatic
accounts has been the introduction of members of
environmental groups or law enforcers and the
representation of their activities as toiling to catch
perpetrators or to simply protect the environment.
Aimed then directly at the sensibilities of the audience,
this reporting has served to implicate those watching in
the despoliation of the environment with the use of
personalised descriptors within the news story which
encourages the audience to reflect on their ownership
and increasing impact on the environment in
individualised ways.
Conclusion
This discussion has revealed much about the production
of environmental issues in BBC Newsround, showing in
particular how a constructed sense of children’s interests
rather than a view of the issues’ political importance,
common to news professionals, has informed its
reporting over time. More specifically we have heard that
it is the assumed view of waning interest in such matters
among the programme’s audience that has recently
shaped the contours of the programmes’ coverage. This
simplistic idea has dictated that the programme carry a
much reduced load of environmental topics than in
previous times and also, as we have witnessed, have
played a role in shaping the dramatic accounts of the
perpetrators and victims of environmental despoliation in
which they appear. Thus, in response to these changes, I
suggest that we should be worried about the practices
that follow such a view and push this important issue
from the children’s news agenda but additionally show
concern over the form in which those that feature are
reported. As it stands, this individualised and
personalised coverage lacks a tangible sense of a wider
geographical, political and economic context to
environmental problems which if included here would
reveal the difficult decisions facing states and peoples as