Newspapers have always had sections. There’s always been the business section, a local section, and of course, the sports section. Before the Internet, when papers were the way to get the news, sections were a precursor to the hyperlink. You could find the section that interested you and read about how your stocks were doing, see who was getting married, or just read the comics without having to leaf through a lot of other news that may have been of lesser interest to you. Transitioning to the Internet, papers still have sections. Instead of being a separate bundle of paper, the sections are links displayed below the paper’s banner on their home page.
Now here is something to ponder: Of the ten largest circulating U.S. papers in the U.S.[1] none of them have an environment section, a place devoted to covering advances in green technology, the impact of rising sea levels on coastal areas and islands, the listing of plants and animals as endangered or threatened, and other such stories.
Looking elsewhere at newspapers in other English speaking countries, their papers devote sections to the environment. The Guardian and The Independent in England have sections on the environment. The Sydney Morning Herald has an environment section. Even the Irish Times devotes a section of its online paper to environmental matters.
Recent polls indicate that Europeans consider the problems of global warming to be of utmost importance, second only to the problem of poverty,[i] while Americans’ concern about global warming is waning.[ii] A majority of Americans think that the protecting the environment should take a back seat when doing so is at odds with extracting coal, oil, and natural gas.[iii]
I believe that the difference of priorities that Americans and Europeans place on the environment is, at least in part, due to the way they are covered in the news. American papers may argue that they are merely giving their readership what they want. They provide a travel section because they know that there are people who want to read about snorkeling in Belize and train travel in Canada, and it’s the same with the financial section and sports section.
This is true, but news sources also influence the way their readers perceive the news and the importance of the news. An easy example is warfare in Central America. During the eighties Americans were acutely aware of the Sandinistas and Contras in Nicaragua as their conflict raged and engulfed Oliver North and Ronald Reagan in an Iran-Contra scandal. There was also a bloody war in Guatemala at the same time, one in which the United States played a role, yet Americans were largely ignorant of the fighting in Guatemala.
Using the New York Times as an indicator of the general press coverage, the number of stories concerning Nicaragua jumped from 1,663 during the seventies to 11,477 during the eighties, while the number of stories about Guatemala went from 1,821 to 3,590 for the same time period. The number of stories about Guatemala did increase, but not to near to the extent that it did for Guatemala.[2]
Americans knew about Daniel Ortega and his baseball caps because the press told them, again and again, about the war in Nicaragua. It’s the same for the environment. Americans would know a great deal about mountaintop removal, and probably care about the plight of the land and people of Appalachia, if it received as much press as Newt Gingrich.
For an adequate democracy, a populace needs to be informed. Without the U.S. press responsibly reporting on the environment, we are left with inadequate knowledge to make the tough decisions we need to make while the planet warms, wetlands are stressed, water grows scarce, and the rest of the natural world is placed at risk.
[1] The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, Washington Post, New York Daly News, New York Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune – Source: Audit Bureau of Circulation
[2] I used Proquest to obtain these figures.
[i] Europeans fear climate change more than financial turmoil, poll shows The Guardian 10/7/11 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/07/europeans-climate-change-poll
[ii] In U.S., Concerns About Global Warming Stable at Lower Levels Gallup 3/14/11 http://www.gallup.com/poll/146606/concerns-global-warming-stable-lower-levels.aspx
[iii] In U.S., Expanding Energy Output Still Trumps Green Concerns Gallup 3/16/11 http://www.gallup.com/poll/146651/expanding-energy-output-trumps-green-concerns.aspx
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