Ok here’s some facts:
The fact that water shortages and forest fires are grabbing at least some news attention has me, as a viewer, begging the question that never gets asked on TV: Is it all because of how humans effect the environment?
I dont know the answer to the question, but it seems like it should have been asked at the least.
I’m not even sure what question you’re asking. The thread title suggests the media ignores environmental issues, but your post says “The fact that water shortages and forest fires are grabbing at least some news attention…”
Sooooo, which is it?
Im suggesting that the broad environmental factors that may or may not cause the aformentioned disasters do not get discussed. I have rarely seen someone ask the question on a debate “Is this all caused by global warming?” for example.
Yeah, but don’t feel victimized. The US media ignores anything that isn’t sensational. Wilfires get plenty of attention, doomsday global warming claims get attention, but anything complicated usually gets the short shrift.
The intricacies of forest management, the benefits/problems with dredging a river, regulations on emissions are usually just too boring to draw people away from that Friends re-run. The same happens with social issues. If some child turns up missing we have a spectacular case and a sudden “issue” but otherwise things just churn along with little direct attention being paid.
That’s why Clinton’s ahem…love of cigars got way more attention than most of his later actions as president. The debate over whether or not this should be important was besides the point since everybody was so completely fascinated anyway.
It all depends on which “media” you are talking about. News papers and magazines do a pretty decent job of covering environmental issues. So do SOME radio broadcasts, especially that bugaboo of the Far Right, NPR. Environmental issues are far too complicated for news-as- entertainment TV. TV does a much better job of telling us about the sensation of the moment accompanied by a six second sound bite. Stuff like global warming is just not susceptible to that sort of coverage–unless it gets to the point of “the world is coming to an end.” That TV can probably handle. Don’t expect TV network news to even try to deal with an issue where there is room for reasonable people of serious thought to disagree. I’m afraid that not even McNeill/Lehrer can do that in a coherent form. For a parallel issue look at TV’s treatment of the recent hormone therapy study. If it doesn’t terrorize or titillate it is not commercial TV’s cup of tea.
Or you could just crack a book, already. There’s no shortage of detailed thoughtful analysis of environmental issues at your local library. Demanding such detail from your nightly newscast is pointless and unreasonable.
I agree and disagree. Books are the best way to get to become informed on the subject.
But, demanding that environmental issues be dealt with more frenquently and with more depth in the daily news is not at all unreasonable.
If Americans were even a fraction (1/4? 1/8?) as informed or as interested in environmental issues as they are professional sports, we could be making a lot of positive changes, and that much further along in our goal (?) of being a truly environmentally educated society.
Think about, really, how mundane and pointless sports are. Then think of the fact that they take up about one quarter of your average newscast. Now, think about all of those eyes glued to the TV set, watching the pointless recaps, scores, and statistics.
I’m not talking about the eradication of sports, just a shift in priorities.
Best,
TGD
What enviromental issues should the news cover? What represents a valid news source for enviromental news? Since even governmental agencies (who, in theory, should be objective), have been shown to fudge the data as needed to suit their particular purposes, who can be trusted to provide accurate information?
Not that I disagree with the OP, (anything to get d*mned baseball off of TV), but until the ‘science’ in ‘enviromental science’ becomes all science and no politics, I don’t see how it could make mainstream news.
I keep myself busy with my own reading, Im just curious when that news shows up whether or not there is a recurring pattern in the amount of droughts/fires related to global warming. I dont even know if there are people that are like “its all cause we shit on the world” or not. I wish theyd satisfy my casual curiosity, bring on an environmental expert and someone that disagrees with global warming and let them go at it. My mind keeps seeing such a debate as the logical conclusion of such environmental news. Maybe those big conglomerates who own most media dont like to talk about it.
Or maybe they don’t air such a debate because for every viewer who gets his casual curiosity satisfied, there are 500 who would find the discussing boring and change the channel. This doesn’t mean the viewing audience is stupid, but those who are interested in global warming and whatnot can find information about it quite readily from sources other than television or radio. I don’t understand why you’re grasping at conspiracy theories; suggesting that environmental debate is being deliberately supressed by the media.
Umm… Scientific jounals? Most environmental articles I read are based on some recent study in one of the major journals. Or are these corrupted by the vast Eniro-wacko[sup]TM[/sup] conspiracy?
I would hardly attempt to defend every single govt environment study ever commissioned, but what evidence do you have that govt reports in this field are of consistently lower quality than those in other fields? I suspect there are isolated instances of what you allege – but I also suspect this is true of just about any field of public interest.
No, environmental debate is not being surpressed by the media. But, the media rarely blows up environmental debates into national spectacles, the way it does celebrity weddings, kidnappings, and Chinese diet pills.
What you said about people who are interested in certain things can find sources of information elsewhere. That’s obviously true for everything. Want to know about celebrities? You can watch TV. Or read People. Or look online. Or read any number of any other things out there.
If there was more exposure to the environmental debate, the number of people interested in it would naturally increase. People didn’t care at all about stupid Survivor, or the Osbornes, or what have you, until commercials and advertisements were crammed down our throats. Then what happened? Then, we became interested. Same thing would happen.
People have individual interests, sure. But you can’t deny the fact that people also become inherently interested in what is presented before them.
If there were some big, advertised programs, on the big national networks, concerning environmental issues, more than just a few people would be interested.
One last note: environmentalism is bad for business. The best thing we can do, to help the environment, is stop buying so much stuff. If we buy less stuff, it’s harder for companies to make more money. Fairly straightforward.
Best,
TGD
No, the media does not ignore enviromental issues.
The public (for the most part) ignores enviromental issues, and the media does not invest too much time covering that which we ignore.
Further to spooje’s point, the reason that forest fires and water shortages themselves are topics for local news whereas deeper environmental analysis is not is because they offer a chance that your house might catch fire or your shower might not work. Those are things that affect your daily life, and are legitimate topics for that brief local and network newscast hole.
Deeper analysis does appear in the media, though, at least somewhat. The large metropolitan dailies and national publications like the Wall Street Journal often report on environmental topics.
In the case of forest fires, the “broad environmental” factors that cause them are usually arson, or an untended campfire, or a discarded cigarette. There’s no reason to inquire deeply as far as the general picture goes.
On a local level, there are issues concerning wildlife and forest management that probably do get discussed, but since I don’t receive any newspapers or television stations from, say, Colorado here in Virginia, I don’t know. Do a search at the Denver Post website for “forest management,” and you get four pages of search results.
Why would they ask that unless it was the kind of problem that could logically be connected to global warming? And what environmental problem is so severe that it could be completely attributed to global warming?
Then why do so many shows on tv fail to draw ratings? Simply because they didn’t have a good enough ad campaign? Television is very competitive marketplace with little or no substance. Substance is boring, entertainment is fun.
The print media as noted is generally better, but still has to grab people’s attention and get them to stop watching tv. Headlines like “River dredging debate rages on:how deep should we dredge?” just don’t grab people’s attention like “Elizabeth Smart parents plead for their child’s life.”
You might be right about this. Maybe network execs just haven’t hit on it yet. I could see a whole environment cable channel. Just keep in mind that it’s still television, and will wind up being edutainment at best.
Bryan: “I don’t understand why you’re grasping at conspiracy theories; suggesting that environmental debate is being deliberately supressed by the media.”
Well, I don’t actually think that Pyth was “grasping at conspiracy.” But as it happens, the #1 censored story for 2000, according to Project Censored’s latest list, concerns an issue with (broadly speaking) environmental consequences: the privatization of water supply in the developing world.
Mainstream news organizations don’t tend to report on a story such as this one because, on the whole, they’ve been sold on “globalization,” come what may, and aren’t interested in telling the fuller story.
I don’t think this amounts to a conspiracy, but there’s certainly a predisposition to tell such stories much as the World Bank, or WTO would tell the stories themselves–or, as in this case, for most mainstraim news organs to just not bother with the story at all.
Bryan’s point–that people aren’t interested and can find out form other sources about complex environmental issues–begs two questions. First, what people are interested in is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Naturally, most people aren’t interested in things they’ve never heard of in the first place. Thirty years ago people used to take a much stronger interest in international affairs; now they’re “more interested” in Entertainment Tonight. But was that a conscious choice that people made? Or a choice that was, in effect, made for them by those who provide media content? Reporting news is, after all, quite expensive. A special 3-part series on environmental issues in the third world is a lot more expensive to produce than a story about a celebrity divorce.
Second, while it’s true that “global warming” is out there, and concerned individuals can indeed get the story from alternative media, not all environment-related issues have that kind of prominence. The term “sustainable development” is perhaps gaining some prominence but that doesn’t mean that even if you’ve decided you care about such things that you’re going to be able to keep informed about them on a regular basis. As the virtually unreported water story suggests, polcies that have serious ramifications for the future sometimes occur without any public discussion; they just don’t hit the radar. And while I don’t think that’s a conspiracy, I do think the ologopolistic and profit-driven US media is in a position to determine what does and what doesn’t hit.
I will add that I think it’s debatable whether the story was actually “censored.” Certainly by one common definition of the word it wasn’t: there was no active coercion involved. But as people involved both in civil liberties and media reform will tell you, there are all kinds of censorship and that, I think, is the short answer to the charge of the media and (what I’d choose not to call) its “conspiracy” to underinform the public.
great_dalmuti, I forgot to mention that I think we’re making similar arguments.
Um, sorry, oligopolistic. That word gets me every time ;).
pldennison "In the case of forest fires, the “broad environmental” factors that cause them are usually arson, or an untended campfire, or a discarded cigarette. There’s no reason to inquire deeply as far as the general picture goes. "
I’d say the most fundamental cause has been the dominant forest management policy in which all forest fires were actively fought rather than allowing them to burn themselves out. For over a century, naturally occurring forest fires were squelched quickly and over time the amount of fuel (read: dead wood) became so great that fires burn big and hot and fast. To borrow a quote from someone who was discussing the fires in Yellowstone back in 1988, “What you want are fires that are small and frequent. What you don’t want are fires that are big and infrequent.”
With regards to the OP, I’d agree that in general ‘environmental issues’ get a short shrift in most popular media. Of course I’m in the environmental field, so I’m sure my biases are showing through. That said, I’m encouraged by what I believe is an increased attention to environmental matters. I can remember what a rarity it was seeing/hearing anything about the environment on a nightly newscast. Nowadays, rarely a day goes by that I don’t see some story designed to inform people about some issue of ecological concern. Yet, I know there is still a ways to go in getting the public more environmentally literate. Fortunately, I’m patient 
I was thinking more along the lines of 38(?) states in drought conditions, water levels at emergency levels. A continued trend (maybe Im just being paranoid) of increasingly drier weather, warmer winters etc…