David B. Sachsman

Public Relations Influence on Coverage of Environment in San Francisco Area.

Throughout most of the I Ws, unless a river was on fire or a major city was in the midst of a week-long smog alert, pollution was commonly accepted by both the press and the public as a fact of life -as part and parcel of industrial society. Corporate public relations promoted this view and skillfully kept the public satisfied. The press rarely heard the bad news of industry pollution but often received good-news releases concerning industry pollution controls and the many benefits offered to the community by local corporations. Cutlip in 1962 estimated that some 35% of the content of newspapers came from public relations practitioners. He said that more and more the news gathering job was being abandoned to the public relations professional. Cutlip contended that study would show that the new, complex areas of news such as science, health, education and social welfare were being covered in a large degree by the PR practitioner, not the aggressive, investiga tive reporter. 1 The environment clearly was a new, very complex area of the news, and the rise of environmental awareness in the late 1960s was due, at least partly, to

Network television news coverage of environmental risks

Despite the criticisms that surround television coverage of environmental risk, there have been relatively few attempts to measure what and whom television shows. Most research has focused analysis on a few weeks of coverage of major stories like the gas leak at Bhopal, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, or the Mount St. Helens eruption. To advance the research into television coverage of environmental risk, an analysis has been made of all environmental risk coverage by the network nightly news broadcasts for a period of more than two years. Researchers have analyzed all environmental risk coverage-564 stories in 26 months-presented on ABC, CBS, and NBCs evening news broadcasts from January 1984 through February 1986. The quantitative information from the 564 stories was balanced by a more qualitative analysis of the television coverage of two case studies-the dioxin contamination in Times Beach, Missouri, and the suspected methyl isocyanate emissions from the Union Carbide plant in Institute, West Virginia. Both qualitative and quantitative data contributed to the analysis of the role played by experts and environmental advocacy sources in coverage of environmental risk and to the suggestions for increasing that role.

Regional Issues, National Norms A Four-Region Analysis of U.S. Environment Reporters

Does a national norm exist for environment reporters, or do they differ by region? This study used a census approach to examine environmental journalists in four regions of the United States. Across all four regions, these reporters spent much of their time covering nonenvironment stories. They relied more often on local and state sources than on national sources and used a variety of story frames and angles to construct their reporting. In discussing barriers to reporting, they were more likely to cite such issues as time constraints or the size of the news hole rather than interference by editors or advertisers. Most felt the need to remain objective, rejecting calls for advocacy or a civic-journalism approach. The study found more similarities across the regions than differences, suggesting that there is a national norm for covering the environment.

Risk and the environment reporters: A four-region analysis

Who are the environment reporters who explain the science of the environment to the general public? Do they consider risk when writing environmental stories? How often do they say they use a risk assessment angle compared to other issues? Are they concerned that they may be exaggerating environmental risks, excessively frightening their readers and viewers? This study used a census approach to interview 354 environment reporters in four regions of the United States. The majority of environment reporters in all four regions said they used risk angles at least sometimes, many more than might have been true in the past. However, the journalists said they more frequently framed their stories using government, human-interest, business, nature, pollution, politics, science, and health angles, and some reporters, ranging from 28.3 percent in New England to 41.8 percent in the Pacific Northwest, said they rarely or never included risk assessment in their environmental stories. Although most journalists in the four regions did not believe that news reports generally sensationalized environmental risks, some reporters (16.9–25.0 percent) said that environmental journalists generally have overblown environmental risks, unduly alarming the public.

The environment reporters of New England

Who are the reporters covering environmental issues in the United States? As the first step in a nationwide series of regional studies of environment reporters conducted over time, the researchers identified and interviewed 55 environment reporters working for New England daily newspapers and television stations in winter and spring 2000. The study found environment reporters working at half the regions newspapers and only four of the television stations. The New England environment reporters ranked everyday, practical journalistic process concerns such as time constraints and the size of the news hole as the most frequent barriers to reporting on the environment. They also said their sources most often came from government, and their stories often contained a variety of factors, including a human-interest angle, a government angle, and a pollution angle. Many wished to aid the environment while still remaining objective in their reporting.

Environment Reporters and U.S. Journalists: A Comparative Analysis

This study provides baseline data regarding environment reporters in the twenty-first century, and then compares this baseline information about a specialized journalism beat to existing studies of U.S. journalists in general. This comparison between 652 environmental journalists working at daily newspapers and television stations and more than 1,000 U.S. journalists in general found that these reporters share many individual and work-related characteristics, perhaps due in part to their similar backgrounds and to the basic professional training received by most journalists. The authors propose a uniform theory of journalism education, arguing that journalists are journalists first because they are linked by their studies, training, and experience, and that differences among reporters may be related to variations in their education. The researchers also found that newspapers employ more specialized reporters than do television stations, and that the bigger the newspaper, the more specialists, suggesting that bigger is better for specialized reporting.

Wrestling with Objectivity and Fairness: U.S. Environment Reporters and the Business Community

Environment reporters have been criticized for allegedly having an antibusiness bias. This study, based on a series of regional surveys including 364 U.S. environment reporters, found the journalists commonly used a business or economics framework for their stories. The reporters used some business organizations as sources more often than some environmental groups. They acknowledged the need to be fair to both corporations and environmental activists. Nevertheless, a substantial minority of these environment reporters said they struggled with the issue of whether their peers are “too green.”

Commentary: Should Reporters Use Risk as a Determinant of Environmental Coverage?

Although many of the news sources that provide environmental information to the media discuss environmental issues in terms of degree of risk, journalists continue to rely on their own traditional determinants of news. They cover the politics, the economics, the social aspects, and even the racial aspects of environmental stories, in addition to the scientific questions involved. By hanging on to their own ways of looking at things, the media have steered clear of the influence of those involved in environmental affairs. They have set their own environmental agendas instead of relying on the value judgments of their sources.

Improving press coverage of environmental risk

Continuing education programs are needed to provide journalists with an understanding of risk assessment, and the preparation required to produce ac curate, professional coverage of environmental problems. The key audience for such programs is general assignment and local-beat reporters and their editors, rather than specialized science and environmental writers. In conducting such educational programs, the researchers learned that reporters and editors auto matically think in terms of the traditional journalistic determinants of news, rather than the scientific degree of risk. Journalists and news sources often col lide because they make assumptions based on their own very different defini tions and expectations. News sources wishing to influence media coverage should adjust their messages according to the needs of journalists: to achieve this, they too can benefit from continuing education programs.

A Test of ‘Loading’: New Measure of Bias

newspaper circulation, crime statistics, voter registraton. This kind of catalog will reveal the real quality of life in a neighborhood. Additionally, it has the advantages of what behavioral scientists call multiple operationism,2 that is, multiple observations of the same general phenomenon, a kind of triangulation on reality. Any single observation is subject to bias and error. But when a large set of different observations corroborate each other, there is a more comfortable feeling about the validity of thc descriptions and analyses. In short, the use of scientific method in reporting begins with a hypothesis (a story idea) and the subsequent systematic collection of a variety of evid a c e bearing on the hypothesis. Since the emphasis here has been on the use of existing evidence, this is really only a small extension of the beat reporter’s task of digging out the news. Once reporters have gained this experience, they are in line for a tremendous windfall as computers bccome widespread in the processing and storage of government records.R Computers mean quicker access to information and greatly increased feasibility for compiling records according to neighborhoods, types of people or types of businesses. Beyond this is the use of the computer by newspapers to process and analyze social indicators collected directly by the news staff. The precedents are already there in the Detroit Free Press’ survey of the Negro ghetto immediately after the 1967 summer riot and its oneyear followup on the riot.4 Knight