Journalism and Global Warming: We Can Be Heroes

by Ian Wilker July 14, 2008
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Alex Lockwood's comment this morning on my previous post got me thinking some more about how skeptics have been able to muddy up the public's perception of global warming -- the level of noise and distortion out there in the media can make the science and policy prescriptions look less settled than they are.

I admit to being thoroughly vexed by all this -- time grows ever shorter and the (I'll be charitable) misinformed cacophony arising from blogs, social networks like Facebook, social-news sites like Digg.com, and other people-powered media grows louder and louder. And it might seem to follow that the growth of these new media is a grim development; web 2.0 has badly dinged the professional news business, and whatever your opinion of traditional journalism as practiced at, say, the Gray Lady, it at least has a developed set of professional standards and ethics. As Lockwood puts it, such "journalists work under the peer pressure of journalistic norms, within institutions."

I, however, am a believer in social media. I figure the media landscape will, in time, adjust to the new "here comes everybody" reality; once things settle out, I expect that journalistic professionalism and news organizations that inculcate and practice it with creativity and excellence will be there leading the way, providing better and better coverage. There's just too much value here -- in original, deeply researched and thoroughly fact-checked reporting, and in analysis/commentary from people who pair long experience with and broad knowledge of an issue with great storytelling skill -- for traditional journalism to go the way of the dodo. Purveyors of hard news, commentary, and long-form investigate work will adapt, become more transparent, collaborative and "co-creative." (Take, for example, a long look at Beatblogging.org, a very promising reporting-meets-social-networking experiment.)

In the short term, however, all I can say is that I think we're at a moment in time that asks individual journalists -- whether professional or amateur -- to be heroes. To work brilliantly and tirelessly to tell the truth about the choices we face -- as individuals, in groups, as global citizens -- and about the consequences that follow on each of these choices. Making sense of climate change for people -- finding ways to increase signal strength and clarity and reduce noise -- is just one of the many forms of heroism called for by the times, but it is important.

I think of writers like Bill McKibben, Andy Revkin, and Elizabeth Kolbert -- each is using all their energy, skill and talent to do whatever they can to move things toward meaningful action. And what other choice is there? If I don't do all I can to help turn this around, or if I give in to despair, how would I be able to look my children in the eye knowing the future they are likely to experience should we fail?

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Comments

Jesse wrote on July 15, 2008, 03:11PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

With a degree in Journalism from he University of Wisconsin - Madison, i find it striking that a journalist would even advocate this position. The role of a journalist is NOT to be a hero, but to present the world on a platter, for the viewer/reader to digest, not position it on a biased platform.
Alex Lockwood wrote on July 16, 2008, 09:38AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

I have few heroes, but Rachel Carson is certainly one of them. As a marine researcher, journalist and environmentalist, she used both literary and rhetorical means to communicate the mounting crisis of pesticide use. The science was factual, the means of persuasion was artistic: it needed the combination of both to elicit a breakthrough in turning concern into action.

There is a long history of literary journalism that is often issues-based and it does qualify as journalism. I don't think Rachel set out to be a hero. Few heroes do.

And there is no flat 'platter' of objectivity--all journalism comes with subjectieve choices, and all journalistic norms are constructed. I edited www.oneworld.net for about four years, and our ethical and moral position was very much to counterbalance the mainstream selection and prioritisation of Western, institutionalised voices in the mainstream media, to amplify the voices of those who are less heard, but need to be heard if we are to have a larger range of bites on that platter. We were critized for being subjective because we chose to prioritise one side of the argument. But if our 'side' were not being represented in the mainstream, why does the mainstream not suffer from the same criticism?

In that sense, journalism is only ever about the selective choices of what is reported, and that's why you're right, Ian, that journalism and journalists won't disappear, and that social media will, long-term, provide the proliferation of voices that we require to be fully informed, and that it won't only be the institutionalised view that is heard. And individuals will emerge (and have emerged) that we could turn to and say, well, yes, they were the heroes of this time.