The Future of Environmental Journalism
By Wilson Schultz
Environmental Media: The Controversial Past
In Ethan Bruemmers blog post, Multimedia Storytelling and its Controversial History, he demonstrates the problems that environmental media has had historically. Outlets such as national geographic have had histories of misrepresentation of minorities and non-white cultures, and many environmental political movements are plagued by the lens of a white America. Media outlets of the past “use media strategies to illustrate these civilizations as different, strange, and exotic, as if they are a museum exhibit” (Bruemmer 2021). Though the industry has seen modern improvements to this problem, indigenous and minority voices are still an afterthought in most environmental media.
A Loyola Phoenix article by Mia Ambroggio points out this facet of environmental journalism. While Joe Biden’s executive agreement to close the Keystone Pipeline was a landmark agreement, there were many forces behind the scenes that did not get the recognition that they deserve, especially from large media outlets. The indigenous organizers that “have been advocating to stop the pipeline for a decade” had not been given the credit that they deserve by CNN, FOX news, or the New York Times. In fact, in any of the articles published around January 20th (when Biden Signed the agreement) about the keystone pipeline don’t credit, let alone mention, the indigenous people who have been tirelessly working for this legislation to be passed.
Ambroggio blames our “western ignorance toward native environmental activism” for this (2021). Our ignorance makes it so we see this pipeline through an economic or political lens, and blinds readers and journalists from the work that is being done behind the scenes. Even though the past was even more problematic, it is obvious that our present isn’t much better.
Takeaways from ES 241 Environmental Journalism: The Future
I will come away from this class with increased communication skills in writing as well as a better understanding of the world in both a journalistic sense as well as a broad sense. This understanding, such as the different lenses that need to be critiqued and acknowledged in environmental journalism, is incredibly important to the work I will do later in life and the way I interact with environmental media. This will allow me to look at environmental media and be able to analyze the bias within it and make decisions about what information to gather from that media.
I will also takeaway a better understanding of my own writing when it is about topics broader than the environment. This class has helped me understand how journalistic writing should be formatted and the many steps that writers need to take to make sure they are putting out the most accurate and true-to-from information as possible. I hope that in the future, whether I am practicing journalism or writing in general, I can take these lessons and apply them to my work. Our SIFT activities and those that focused on finding the best information, though pessimistic about the current state of technology, will leave me with a better world view and understanding of how to approach media.
I hope to see environmental journalism change and morph as time goes on. The field, as we have seen with the historical tidbits section and discussion, is not perfect. There are many media outlets that still need to undergo significant change in their practices in order to create a better medium for environmental journalism to flourish. In the Meera Subramanian interview that we read, she emphasized this point that environmental journalism was constantly changing and fluctuating. In the interview, titled How Environmental Journalism Is Surviving — and Thriving — in an Unstable World, Subramanian described how “technology has a huge role” in the future and brings both challenges and cooperation. Looking towards the future I can only hope that the technology that arises in the years to come only brings about good development to the world of journalism instead of hindering it further.
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