TEXAS NEWS MEDIA AND CONSERVATION

May 21, 2004
Houston Endowment
Houston, Texas

Erika McDonald, a freelance environmental reporter who has worked for six years in print, Internet, and radio for the Citizens Environmental Coalition, Pacifica radio, NPR radio, Free Speech Radio, and International Workers Radio, led the special discussion on the overlap between news coverage, non-profit group outreach, and conservation education.

She explained that her work began as a straight news job, with the familiar tasks of getting to know the topic, culling the many possible story leads, collecting diverse sources of information, translating from official jargon, and distilling the facts to an eighth grade reader's comprehension.

Increasingly, though, as she got further into the environmental news niche, she saw peculiar aspects to the work. For example:

Due to the complexity of the material, she found that she needed to rely heavily on non-profit groups for specific and background information and interpretation. For instance, she needed to go to the Living Water Initiative to find the data and charts, to explain the history of agricultural water use for one story.

She discovered that the slow-developing, subtle-but-deep aspects to environmental stories made it difficult to "lead with what bleeds", and that she often had to delay a worthwhile but complex story until there was a good lead that could introduce it.

She saw that she often needed to "put a face on a policy". For example, when trying to describe the review of enforcement patterns at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, she felt that the importance and relevance of the story would have been lost without touching on the stories of a child with asthma or a father with cancer, and how their problems might have been alleviated with better environmental law enforcement. She thinks that the meaning of a story is lost without some connection with an individual.

Ms McDonald believes it's also important to find and show the interconnections among issues. For instance, she strives to explain links between environmental flows and shrimpers' catches and lives, or the tie between air pollution, lungs, health, and pocketbooks.

She stressed that it is essential to tell the truth, despite whatever controversy might arise. Too often, she feels that mainstream media presents stories as a sort of "he said, she said" debate, as a pretense of objectivity, but often just as a confusion of what is true and real. Too frequently, she believes that major media outlets characterize industry as the authority, and paints environmentalists as extreme "wackos". In too many cases, she thinks that the news channels trivialize environmental matters, and fail to recognize that they involve issues of life and death.

She's found some unexpected strengths to various media formats in telling environmental stories. For instance, radio at first seemed like a big challenge in forcing her to boil down long and complex environmental issues into short digestible bursts of information. Later, though, she found that radio offered some real opportunities to give all the impact of television, without TV's vulgarity and prejudice. As she pointed out, it's difficult to prejudge in radio: we don't have the usual clues of skin color, dress, mannerisms, etc. We only have the great power of a single voice. As an example of the strength of a voice, she mentioned a story she did that captured both the resignation and indignation in a fisherman's protest against mercury in Lufkin area lakes and fish that had been contaminated by area coal and lignite power plants.

Ms. McDonald has also found value in presenting stories in local smaller newspapers, such as the Texas City Sun, Bay City Times, or Brazoria County Facts, These papers are often eager for copy, and have readers directly affected by air pollution and petrochemical problems that environmental reporters might cover. Also, surprisingly, stories in these smaller papers are sometimes picked up by major outlets, including the AP wire, New York Times, and Orion. As an example, she offered the story she did about Hilton Kelly and his protest against the Shell refinery in Port Arthur, which after being syndicated, drew in international activists concerned about other Shell operations elsewhere.

Ms McDonald has also discovered that environmental stories often start with local land use, but reflect larger patterns. For example, the federal Healthy Forest Initiative, which envisions major "thinning" for pest and wildfire control, but has been criticized as a subsidy to lumber companies, is first being tested in East Texas national forests. Likewise, Austin's efforts to stop careless siting and construction of Wal Mart and other big-box stores are part of a nationwide campaign against these stores' development.

A special problem for environmental stories involves their role as not just abstract information but as spurs to activism. Ms McDonald is concerned about how her stories can reach beyond the choir, beyond the converted. She realized that the 2600 individuals who received CEC news stories did not make up a critical mass of people who could immediately effect great change. On the other hand, she increasingly recognizes that, as Margaret Mead said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has". The "choir", while small, is hard-working, and willing to share and pass on the news, and put it to work.

She also is concerned that environmental stories often don't get the coverage they deserve, either because public figures are chilled from even speaking out forthrightly about embarrassing truths ("whitewashing"), or because mainstream media is reluctant to cover controversial stories in a full and complete way. As an example, she mentioned John Kerry's last-minute omission of any mention of Houston's smog and hazardous air pollution problem when he spoke in the city on Earth Day 2004. Evidently he pulled his planned mention of the problem under pressure from city representatives concerned about Houston's reputation. Even when there are environmental items to cover, mainstream media sometimes ducks: Ms McDonald has often heard of non-profit representatives frustrated with having spent numerous hours with a broadcast or major newspaper reporter, painstakingly explaining the intricacies of an environmental problem, only to see their views reduced to a 3-second sound "bark".

So, from her position as a freelance reporter in alternative media, Ms. McDonald often seeks to push her stories, to write articles that will be syndicated or, less directly, lead other reporters to investigate. As an example, she mentioned two stories that she broke which were later picked up: one concerning the major concentration of 37 landfills within 9 miles of Acres Homes, a black, elderly low-income Houston community that has suffered towers of trash, contaminated groundwater, and high incidence of cancer. A second story that circulated well beyond the alternative media was an article covering brominated fire retardants, a toxic chemical now found commonly in mother's breastmilk.

Questions and Answers

Q: Erika wrapped up her discussion with a question to the group: where do you get your news? One funder said that she gets her news from the Forward Times, Houston Chronicle, and a clipping service employed by Exxon Mobil. Another funder said that she hears about the world through the Houston Chronicle, KPFT, classical radio, the Houston Press, and the New York Times' online edition.

David Langworthy, the Houston Chronicle's editor of its opinion page, said that environmental stories had come into their own time. He sees news that touch on parks, or just generally, the "green" or the "scenic", as being far better covered now than 10-15 years ago. He was wary of news as advocacy though, and noted the Chronicle's commitment to balance. He added that he felt that the central environmental story for Houston was how this traditionally sprawling city was increasingly urbanizing. He sees this return to the urban core as key to saving habitat on the outskirts of town, which he sees under siege in his own Woodlands area community, near FM 1488, which is increasingly looking like the strip development of FM 1960. He recommended forester C.E. "Chuck" Hunt, as an authority on the collision of city and habitat, and applauded the efforts by Houston Wilderness to protect suburban habitat.

Q: How does the Chronicle's editorial board work? Mr. Langworthy said that there are 9 on the board, including the publisher and a number of editors, who work and vote collegially. He pointed out that the board's diversity, in terms of gender and background, had increased markedly in the last year. He suggested that those interested in meeting with the editorial board contact James Gibbons.

Q: How does the Chronicle find balance when there are controversial subjects with two or more points of view, but the vast predominance of consensus is on one side, such as in climate change? Mr. Langworthy said that he thinks it is increasingly important to vet people's affiliations, to ensure that they are independent and honest. Doug Zabel and Mr. Langworthy discussed a recent story that was contributed in a scattergun fashion, under different pseudonyms to a variety of newspapers. The story was misleadingly attributed to an "independent" University of Texas researcher, later revealed to be highly influenced by a vested-interest and regulated industry.

Q: How does a reporter write to "incite" to action? Ms. McDonald replied that it wasn't her goal to do that, but more to expose the relationship between the powerful and the impacted.. Erika suggested that people take a look at the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting website, http://www.fair.org/, which discusses more about the "myth of objectivity", and how often the "he said, she said" quotes fail to depict the factual conclusions of science, particularly when the data depart from what industry might prefer.