A new effort from Al Jazeera ups environmental coverage in the
U.S. as Canadian coverage of tar sands and government cuts shines.
But newsrooms keep shrinking, and Al Gore is still the boogey
man.
By Peter Dykstra in The
Daily Climate
"Deniers"
see news media in lockstep with a conspiracy of scientists, bureaucrats,
hippies and ne'er-do-wells to steal the world's energy markets and force us all
to change our ways.
"Believers"
fault media for failing to keep the public well-informed on climate impacts
coming down the pike.
Whatever the
worldview, lately we've seen enough media out there for both sides to get their
fill.
Start with the deniers
Given the growing
weight of science and on-the-ground evidence that human-caused climate change
is underway, I'm surprised by the strong foothold outright climate denial
continues to have in media today.
The evidence? 1) We
haven't had a Sandy-like storm since 2012; 2) Tornadoes are down, too; and 3) A
rowing team whose attempt to cross the Arctic was thwarted by the remaining ice
pack. You have to admire IBD's determination to dig in, but perhaps they should
try the thawing Arctic, where it's easier than ever to dig. Just watch out for
the methane releases.
On the TV side, Fox News "debate" on climate change this summer could be
the museum piece for the ages on climate denial. "The Five" is a
daily Fox show where four conservatives out-shout an elderly liberal, former
Carter Administration official Bob Beckel. They tackled climate change on the
day of President Obama's June speech on the topic, and three-fifths of the Five
agreed with host Eric Bolling that climate science has been "utterly
debunked." Oh, and they took a swipe at Al Gore.
On the flip side
Al Jazeera America
launched last month, and in its early days AJAM shows potential for delivering
on its promise to take the news more seriously than its established cable
competitors.
The liberal
group Media Matters
for America said AJAM's first-day attention to climate
change nearly matched what other networks do in an entire year. AJAM has also
devoted segments to fracking, tar sands, rising dengue fever in Florida, and a
half-hour on western wildfires featuring a spectrum of guests from the Forest
Service to the National Wildlife Federation to the libertarian National Center
for Policy Alternatives.
Stealth science purge
There's been some
strong reporting from Canadian outlets on the breathtaking about-face in
environmental policy up north.
Postmedia, a multi-city newspaper chain, and the
nationally-circulated Globe and Mail have paid particularly close attention
to stories that have some impact on, but no visibility in, the United States.
Since taking the
government's reins in 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has led the country
on an anti-regulatory, pro-fossil fuel binge that could give environmentalists
the blues and turn Dick Cheney green with envy.
Harper's government
closed major research facilities and purged many of Canada's environmental
scientists. Reporters face severe limits on access to government data, and to
interviews.
And of course, in the
tar sands of Harper's native Alberta, the nation weighs a potential economic
bonanza against tremendous environmental consequences. The P.M. is all about
the former. Loud and relentless protests have pushed the Keystone XL pipeline
story into some national prominence, but the change underway in a nation once
considered a world environmental leader is still an untold story in the United
States.
A major reason for
this is that U.S. media really hasn't covered much of anything from Canada
since Celine Dion mercifully faded away. The last fulltime U.S. bureau in
Canada folded in 2007, when Doug Struck, then of the Washington Post and now an
occasional Daily Climate contributor, packed his bags and turned the lights
out. Specialty publications and nonprofits, notably our colleagues at Inside
Climate News, have pressed the pipeline and science stories, but they're
largely AWOL from "mainstream" media.
Moving on
Perhaps that's because
the environmental reporter has become an endangered species of sorts as
newsrooms have shrunk. That trend continues.
Perry Beeman, longtime environment reporter at the Des Moines Register and
former President of the Society of Environmental Journalists, left the paper
last month for academia. Another Gannett paper, the News-Journal of Wilmington,
Delaware, announced 27
layoffs on August 26.
The News-Journal has
distinguished itself of late with thorough coverage of climate impacts in
America's lowest-lying state. Reporters Jeff Montgomery, Molly Murray, and Dan
Garrow were runners up this year for the National Academy of Sciences'
communication awards for their series, "Climate change puts coast in
crosshairs."
Many of us have come
to presume that "layoffs" and "environment reporter" were
meant to be uttered in the same sentence. But in a brief email, News-Journal
editor David Ledford said the paper's climate and environment coverage, and
reporter Jeff Montgomery, were surviving "just fine."
Also an apparent
casualty is veteran Salt Lake Tribune environment reporter Judy Fahys, axed along with 20 percent of her colleagues at the paper on
last week.
Nonprofit radio is not
exempt, either. The mighty and the meek have taken hits lately: NPR announced
planned layoffs of 10 percent of its staff and across-the-board management
changes. No word yet on how deeply the network's science and environment
coverage will be hit.
WBAI radio, the New
York flagship of the Pacifica radio network, canned its entire news department
this summer amidst deep financial troubles. WBAI and Pacifica have covered
environment news since Rachel Carson's
day.
Peter Dykstra is publisher of Environmental
Health News and The Daily Climate, independent, foundation-funded news sites
that cover climate change, energy, health and the environment. Opinions
expressed are those of the author and not of The Daily Climate or Environmental
Health News. Find us on
Twitter @TheDailyClimate or email editor Douglas Fischer at
dfischer [at] DailyClimate.org