Environmental journalism is the collection, verification, production, distribution and exhibition of information regarding current events, trends, issues and people that are associated with the non-human world with which humans necessarily interact. To be an environmental journalist, one must have an understanding of scientific language and practice, knowledge of historical environmental events, the ability to keep abreast of environmental policy decisions and the work of environmental organizations, a general understanding of current environmental concerns, and the ability to communicate all of that information to the public in such a way that it can be easily understood, despite its complexity.

Environmental journalism falls within the scope of environmental communication Environmental communication refers to the study and practice of how individuals, institutions, societies, and cultures craft, distribute, receive, understand, and use messages about the environment and human interactions with the environment. This includes a wide range of possible interactions, from interpersonal communication to virtual, and its roots can be traced to nature writing Nature writing is generally defined as nonfiction prose writing about the natural environment. Nature writing often draws heavily on scientific information and facts about the natural world; at the same time, it is frequently written in the first person and incorporates personal observations of and philosophical reflections upon nature. One key controversy in environmental journalism is a continuing disagreement over how to distinguish it from its allied genres and disciplines.

History

While the practice of nature writing has a rich history that dates back at least as far as the exploration narratives of Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus was a Genoese navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean—funded by Queen Isabella of Spain—led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. Although not the first to reach the Americas from Europe—he was preceded by the Norse, led by Leif Ericson, who, and follows tradition up through prominent nature writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the early 19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 1800s, while he was seen as a champion of individualism and prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of and Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in the late 19th century, John Burroughs John Burroughs was an American naturalist and essayist important in the evolution of the U.S. conservation movement. According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the and John Muir John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of U.S. wilderness. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, have been read by millions and are still popular today. His direct activism helped to save the Yosemite in the early 20th century, and Aldo Leopold Aldo Leopold was an American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist. He was influential in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness preservation. Leopold is considered to be the father of wildlife management in the United States and was a life-long fisherman and hunter. Leopold died in 1948 from a heart in the 1940s, the field of environmental journalism did not begin to take shape until the 1960s and 1970s.

The growth of environmental journalism as a profession roughly parallels that of the environmental movement, which became a mainstream cultural movement with the publication of Rachel Carson Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and nature writer whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement’s Silent Spring in 1962 and was further legitimized by the passage of the Wilderness Act The Wilderness Act of 1964 was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society. It created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected some 9 million acres (36,000 km²) of federal land. The result of a long effort to protect federal wilderness, the Wilderness Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Grassroots environmental organizations made a booming appearance on the political scene in the 1960s and 1970s, raising public awareness of what many considered to be the “environmental crisis,” and working to influence environmental policy It is useful to consider that environmental policy comprises two major terms: environment and policy. Environment primarily refers to the ecological dimension, but can also take account of social (quality of life) dimension and an economic (resource management) dimension. Policy can be defined as a "course of action or principle adopted or decisions. The mass media has followed and generated public interest on environmental issues ever since.

The field of environmental journalism was further legitimized by the creation of the Society of Environmental Journalists in 1990, whose mission “is to advance public understanding of environmental issues by improving the quality, accuracy, and visibility of environmental reporting.” Today, academic programs are offered at a number of institutions to train budding journalists in the rigors, complexity and sheer breadth of environmental journalism.

Advocacy debate

There exists a minor rift in the community of environmental journalists. Some, including those in the Society of Environmental Journalists, believe in objectively reporting environmental news, while others, like Michael Frome, a prominent figure in the field, believe that journalists should only enter the environmental side of the field if saving the planet is a personal passion, and that environmental journalists should not shy away from environmental advocacy, though not at the expense of clearly relating facts and opinions on all sides of an issue. This debate is not likely to be settled soon, but with changes in the field of journalism filtering up from new media being used by the general public to produce news, it seems likely that the field of environmental journalism will lend itself more and more toward reporting points of view akin to environmental advocacy.

Genres

Environmental communication Environmental communication refers to the study and practice of how individuals, institutions, societies, and cultures craft, distribute, receive, understand, and use messages about the environment and human interactions with the environment. This includes a wide range of possible interactions, from interpersonal communication to virtual is all of the forms of communication that are engaged with the social debate about environmental issues and problems.^[1]

Also within the scope of environmental communication Environmental communication refers to the study and practice of how individuals, institutions, societies, and cultures craft, distribute, receive, understand, and use messages about the environment and human interactions with the environment. This includes a wide range of possible interactions, from interpersonal communication to virtual are the genres of nature writing Nature writing is generally defined as nonfiction prose writing about the natural environment. Nature writing often draws heavily on scientific information and facts about the natural world; at the same time, it is frequently written in the first person and incorporates personal observations of and philosophical reflections upon nature, science writing, environmental literature, environmental interpretation and environmental advocacy. While there is a great deal of overlap among the various genres within environmental communication, they are each deserving of their own definition.

Nature writing

Nature writing Nature writing is generally defined as nonfiction prose writing about the natural environment. Nature writing often draws heavily on scientific information and facts about the natural world; at the same time, it is frequently written in the first person and incorporates personal observations of and philosophical reflections upon nature is the genre with the longest history in environmental communication. In his book, This Incomparable Land: A Guide to American Nature Writing, Thomas J. Lyon attempts to use a “taxonomy of nature writing” in order to define the genre. He suggests that his classifications, too, suffer a great deal of overlap and intergrading. “The literature of nature has three main dimensions to it: natural history information, personal responses to nature, and philosophical interpretation of nature” (Lyon 20). In the natural history essay, “the main burden of the writing is to convey pointed instruction in the facts of nature,” such as with the ramble-type nature writing of John Burroughs (Lyon 21). “In essays of experience, the author’s firsthand contact with nature is the frame for the writing,” as with Edward Abbey’s contemplation of a desert sunset (Lyon 23). In the philosophical interpretation of nature, the content is similar to that of the natural history and personal experience essays, “but the mode of presentation tends to be more abstract and scholarly” (Lyon 25). The Norton Book of Nature Writing adds a few new dimensions to the genre of nature writing, including animal narratives, garden essays, farming essays, ecofeminist works, writing on environmental justice, and works advocating environmental preservation, sustainability and biological diversity. Environmental journalism pulls from the tradition and scope of nature writing.

Science writing

Science writing is writing that focuses specifically on topics of scientific study, generally translating jargon that is difficult for those outside a particular scientific field to understand into language that is easily digestible. This genre can be narrative or informative. Not all science writing falls within the bounds of environmental communication, only science writing that takes on topics relevant to the environment. Environmental journalism also pulls from the tradition and scope of science writing.

Environmental interpretation

Environmental interpretation is a particular format for the communication of relevant information. It “involves translating the technical language of a natural science or related field into terms and ideas that people who aren’t scientists can readily understand. And it involves doing it in a way that’s entertaining and interesting to these people” (Ham 3). Environmental interpretation is pleasurable (to engage an audience in the topic and inspire them to learn more about it), relevant (meaningful and personal to the audience so that they have an intrinsic reason to learn more about the topic), organized (easy to follow and structured so that main points are likely to be remembered) and thematic (the information is related to a specific, repetitious message) (Ham 8–28). While environmental journalism is not derived from environmental interpretation, it can employ interpretive techniques to explain difficult concepts to its audience.

Environmental literature

Environmental literature is writing that comments intelligently on environmental themes, particularly as applied to the relationships between man, society and the environment. Most nature writing and some science writing falls within the scope of environmental literature. Often, environmental literature is understood to espouse care and concern for the environment, thus advocating a more thoughtful and ecologically sensitive relationship of man to nature. Environmental journalism is partially derived from environmental literature

Environmental advocacy

Environmental advocacy is presenting information on nature and environmental issues that is decidedly opinionated and encourages its audience to adopt more environmentally sensitive attitudes, often more biocentric worldviews. Environmental advocacy can be present in any of the aforementioned genres of environmental communication. It is currently debated whether environmental journalism should employ techniques of environmental advocacy.

Topics

The field of environmental journalism covers a wide variety of topics. According to The Reporter’s Environmental Handbook, environmental journalists perceive water concerns as the most important environmental issue, followed by atmospheric air pollution concerns, endocrine disruptors, and waste management issues. The journalists surveyed were more likely to prioritize specific, local environmental issues than global environmental concerns.

Environmental journalism can include, but is not limited to, some of the following topics:

From The Reporter’s Environmental Handbook:

• Air Pollution Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or damages the natural environment, into the atmosphere (Indoor)
• Air Pollution (Outdoor)
• Animal Waste Management
• Biodiversity Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or for the entire Earth. Biodiversity is often used as a measure of the health of biological systems. The biodiversity found on Earth today consists of many millions of distinct biological species, which is the product of nearly 3.5 billion years of evolution
• Brownfields Brownfields are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use. Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations (“former industrial and commercial sites” (104))
• Cancer Cancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood). These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, and Other Disease Cluster Claims
• Chemical Emergencies
• Chemical weapons Chemical warfare involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons to kill, injure, or incapacitate an enemy (Disarmament)
• Children’s Health (Asthma Asthma is a chronic medical condition. It has been defined by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the United States of America as a common chronic disorder of the airways that is complex and characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, airflow obstruction, bronchial hyperresponsiveness , and an underlying inflammation. The)
• Children’s Health (Lead Lead is a main-group element with symbol Pb (Latin: plumbum) and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metals. Lead has a bluish-white color when freshly cut, but tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed to air. It has a shiny chrome-silver luster when melted into a liquid)
• Cross-Border Environmental Issues (U.S.-Mexico)
• Dioxin Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins , or simply dioxins, are a group of polyhalogenated compounds which are significant because they act as environmental pollutants. They are commonly referred to as dioxins for simplicity in scientific publications because every PCDD molecule contains a dioxin skeletal structure. Typically, the p-dioxin skeleton is at
• Disposal of Dredged Materials
• Endocrine Disruptors (“also called a hormonally active agent, [it] is a chemical that interferes with the functioning of the endocrine system” (172))
• Environmental Justice Environmental justice refers to inequitable environmental burdens borne by groups such as racial minorities, women, residents of economically disadvantaged areas, or residents of developing nations. Environmental justice proponents generally view the environment as encompassing "where we live, work, and play" (sometimes "pray" and Hazardous Waste U.S. environmental laws additionally describe a "hazardous waste" as a waste (usually a solid waste) that has the potential to:
• Food irradiation Food irradiation is the process of exposing food to ionizing radiation to destroy microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, or insects that might be present in the food. Further applications include sprout inhibition, delay of ripening, increase of juice yield, and improvement of re-hydration. Irradiation is a more general term of deliberate exposure of
• Genetically Modified Crops
• Global warming Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the last century.[A] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that increasing greenhouse gas and climate change Climate change is any long-term change in the statistics of weather over durations ranging from decades to millions of years. It can be manifest in changes to averages, extremes, or other statistical measures, and may occur in a specific region or for the Earth as a whole
• Groundwater Pollution
• Naturally Occurring and Technology-Based Disasters
• Occupational Health
• Ozone Ozone or trioxygen is a triatomic molecule, consisting of three oxygen atoms. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic O2. Ground-level ozone is an air pollutant with harmful effects on the respiratory systems of animals. The ozone layer in the upper atmosphere filters potentially damaging ultraviolet light from Depletion
• Pesticides A pesticide is a substance or mixture of substances used to kill a pest. A pesticide is any substance or mixture of substance intended for: - preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest. A pesticide may be a chemical substance, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest. Pests include insects, plant
• Pollution Prevention/Source Reduction
• Population growth Population growth is the change in population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals in a population using "per unit time" for measurement. The term population growth can technically refer to any species, but almost always refers to humans, and it is often used informally for the more specific
• Sprawl and Environmental Health Environmental health is the branch of public health that is concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment that may affect human health. Other terms that refer to the discipline of environmental health include environmental public health and environmental health and protection
• Surface Water Quality
• Water Supply

From EnviroLink:

• Agriculture Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is
• Air Quality
• Climate Change Climate change is any long-term change in the statistics of weather over durations ranging from decades to millions of years. It can be manifest in changes to averages, extremes, or other statistical measures, and may occur in a specific region or for the Earth as a whole
• Ecosystems An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms in an area functioning together with all of the physical (abiotic) factors of the environment. An ecosystem is a unit of interdependent organisms which share the same habitat. Ecosystems usually form a number of food webs which show the interdependence of the
• Energy In physics, energy is a scalar physical quantity that describes the amount of work that can be performed by a force, an attribute of objects and systems that is subject to a conservation law. Different forms of energy include kinetic, potential, thermal, gravitational, sound, light, elastic, and electromagnetic energy. The forms of energy are
• Environmental Disasters An environmental disaster is a disaster that is due to human activity and should not be confused with natural disasters. In this case, the impact of humans' alteration of the ecosystem has led to widespread and/or long-lasting consequences. It can include the deaths of animals and plants, or severe disruption of human life, possibly requiring
• Environmental Economics Environmental economics is a subfield of economics concerned with environmental issues. Quoting from the National Bureau of Economic Research Environmental Economics program:
• Environmental Education Environmental education refers to organized efforts to teach about how natural environments function and, particularly, how human beings can manage their behavior and ecosystems in order to live sustainably. The term is often used to imply education within the school system, from primary to post-secondary. However, it is sometimes used more
• Environmental Ethics Environmental ethics is the part of environmental philosophy which considers extending the traditional boundaries of ethics from solely including humans to including the non-human world. It exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including law, sociology, theology, economics, ecology and geography
• Environmental Legislation Environmental law is a complex and interlocking body of statutes, common law, treaties, conventions, regulations and policies which, very broadly, operate to regulate the interaction of humanity and the rest of the biophysical or natural environment, toward the purpose of reducing or minimizing the impacts of human activity, both on the natural and Environmental Policy It is useful to consider that environmental policy comprises two major terms: environment and policy. Environment primarily refers to the ecological dimension, but can also take account of social (quality of life) dimension and an economic (resource management) dimension. Policy can be defined as a "course of action or principle adopted or
• Forests A forest is an area with a high density of trees. There are many definitions of a forest, based on the various criteria. These plant communities presently cover approximately 9.4% of the Earth's surface in many different regions and function as habitats for organisms, hydrologic flow modulators, and soil conservers, constituting one of the most
• Ground pollution
• Habitat conservation Habitat conservation is a land management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore, habitat areas for wild plants and animals, especially conservation reliant species, and prevent their extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range. It is a priority of many groups that cannot be easily characterized in terms of any one ideology
• Natural History Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards the observational than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research that is published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, Natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or
• Outdoor Recreation
• Population In biology, a population is the collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular species; in sociology, a collection of human beings. Individuals within a population share a factor may be reduced by statistical means, but such a generalization may be too vague to imply anything. Demography is used extensively in marketing, which relates to
• Sciences Science refers to any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique or practice
• Social Sciences The social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups, animals and individuals including anthropology, archeology, communication studies, cultural studies, demography, economics, human geography, history, linguistics, media studies, political science, psychology, social work, and sociology and Humanities The humanities are academic disciplines which study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences
• Sustainable Development Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for future generations. The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as
• Sustainable Living
• Transportation
• Urban Issues
• Vegetarianism
• Waste Management
• Water Quality
• Wildlife

See also

• Advocacy journalism
• Conservation Commons
• Conservation movement
• Dean v. Utica
• Ecology
• Ecology movement
• Environmental communication
• Environmental movement
• Environmental reporting
• Environmental science
• Environmentalism
• European Environmental Press (EEP)
• Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment
• Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
• Journalism
• Journalism ethics and standards
• List of environment topics
• List of environmental periodicals
• Lists of environmental publications
• Objectivity (journalism)
• Objectivity (philosophy) main article discussing the concept of objectivity in various fields (history, science, journalism, philosophy, etc.)
• Science journalism

References

1. ^ Meisner, Mark. "What is Environmental Communication?". Environmental Communication Network. http://www.esf.edu/ecn/whatisec.htm. Retrieved on 2007-06-06.

• EnviroLink. Accessed 11 Oct. 2005. <http://www.envirolink.org>
• Finch, Howard and John Elder. Eds. The Norton Book of Nature Writing. College Ed. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002. ISBN 0-393-97816-8
• Frome, Michael. Green Ink. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1998. ISBN 0-87480-582-1
• Ham, Sam. Environmental Interpretation: A Practical Guide for People with Big Ideas and Small Budgets. Golden: North American Press, 1992. ISBN 1-55591-902-2
• Lyon, Thomas J. This Incomparable Land: A Guide to American Nature Writing. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2001. ISBN 1-57131-256-0
• Meisner, Mark. "What is Environmental Communication?" The Environmental Communication Network. 2005. State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Accessed 11 Oct. 2005. <http://www.esf.edu/ecn>
• Society of Environmental Journalists. 2005. Accessed 11 Oct. 2005. <http://www.sej.org>
• West, Bernadette M., M. Jane Lewis, Michael R. Greenburg, David B. Sachsman, and Renée M. Rogers. The Reporter’s Environmental Handbook. 3rd ed. New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8135-3287-6
• Anderson, Alison. Media, Culture and the Environment. Taylor and Francis, Inc., 1997. ISBN 1-85728-383-X
• Beck, Larry and Ted Cable. Interpretation for the 21st Century: Fifteen Guiding Principles for Interpreting Nature and Culture. 2nd ed. Champaign: Sagamore Publishing, 2002. ISBN 1-57167-522-1
• Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-674-25862-2
• Blum, Deborah, Robin Marantz Henig, and Mary Knudson. A Field Guide for Science Writers: The Official Guide of the National Association of Science Writers. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-19-517499-2
• Chapman, Graham, Keval Kumar, Caroline Fraser, and Ivor Gaber. Environmentalism and the Mass Media. New York and London: Routledge, 1997. ISBN 0-415-15505-3
• Dobson, Andrew. The Green Reader: Essays Toward a Sustainable Society. Mercury House, 1991. ISBN 1-56279-010-2
• Goldstein, Eric A. and Mark Izeman. The New York Environment Book. Island Press, 1990. ISBN 1-55963-018-3
• Hanson, Anders, ed. The Mass Media and Environmental Issues. London and New York: Leicester University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-7185-1444-0
• Kamrin, Michael A., Dolores J. Katz, and Martha L. Walter. Reporting on Risk: A Journalist's Handbook. 3rd ed. Michigan Sea Grant College Program, 1999. ISBN 1-885756-11-9
• Lamay, Craig L.L. and Everette E. Dennis, eds. Media and the Environment. Island Press, 1991. ISBN 1-55963-130-9
• Nash, Roderick Frazier. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-300-09122-2
• Neuzil, Mark and William Kovairk. Mass Media and Environmental Conflict: America’s Green Crusades. Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 1996. ISBN 0-7619-0333-X
• Palen, John. “Objectivity as Independence: Creating the Society of Environmental Journalists, 1989-1997.” Proceedings of the National Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, August 1998. Society of Environmental Journalists. 28 Sept. 2005 <http://www.sej.org/about/index2.htm>.

External links

• Xover Environment Magazine
• Society of Environmental Journalists
• Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder
• Environmental Communication Resource Center at Northern Arizona University
• Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University
• Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting
• Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University
• Cascadia Times

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