Sunday, October 17, 1993 ~ North Shore News - 7 edia missing eco-disaster SOMEBODY SHOULD write a book (titked The Media: Media On Ecology. When it comes to adequate coverage of a major news event, ¢ contend, the environmental catias- trophe unfolding all around us gets astonishingly short shrift from the mainstream media. Even though the story is staring them in the face everywhere they turn, reporters and editors, for the mast part, carry on covering the news as they always have, refusing to see how we are all being picked up in a slow-notion, incoming tidal wave of global environmental change, Because the media have such enormous influence in the way they shape public perception of the broad picture, when romething does not appear as an issue in an ,. election, it is generally because the media have sniffed their aoses at the subject, and run off to bark aboufsomething else. The media’s power nowadays has to be seen up close to be believed. _ Harking back to when I first set forth, ballpoint in hand, to cover a provincial legislative session nearly 30 years ago, cabinet ‘ministers were treated like barons, and you were expected to prac- tically. bow when the premier himself came into the room, Reporters were scum. .. Today, even the prime minister ‘must run a'gauntlet of cheeky, ', noisy, rude, scruffy reporters who . ‘are gleefully aware that they have _ already. destroyed her by virtue of * the way they, collectively decided - / ‘to portray her. : ! . “. As we all know, each of our - personalities has many facets. Ail that shows up about party leaders at the mass level are caricatures. That’s why political cartoonists are the elite of the media. They set «the tone. -. Such has been the sea change in «.the balance of power between the various estates that nowadays, flunkies drag dishevelled cabinet ministers out of meetings fora “chance to deliver a 30-second clip -to bored television reporters, The Fourth Estate i is in the ascendan- “ey. It is the setup of the news- gathering machine that dictates the way the news will be delivered, and to a more subtle extent, it is ‘the editors and producers who sift through the offerings to decide Fcolopy Of ob Hunter STRICTLY PERSONAL what they think is news. And that’s what becomes news, period. News is, by definition, as much not about certain things as it is about others. And how do editors and pro- ducers arrive at their awesome judgments on what is and is not news? Well, it’s very mysterious to mere columnists and reporters, but it’s got something to do with who they hang out with, what their rel- atives think, what their wives or husbands say, which side they got out of the bed on that morning, and whether they’re quitting smoking. What is astonishing about this process is how close to the same calls they keep making, even though they work for different news organizations. Maybe it’s because they plug into the same wire services, so they’re getting fed the same stuff, and they read the same trade papers and magazines, sometimes the same books. Whatever, in the end, like a herd, they shamble off to produce look-alike front pages and clones of each other’s TV shows. It’s nat a conspiracy. It’s just the way things are. Canada’s media are roughly as middle-of-the-road as Canadian readers and viewers, It is what the Germans call a gestalt. Alas, the gestalt has a short at- tention span, and seems to have failed to grasp a number of vital contemporary issues, contenting itself with picking at juicy tidbits of scandal, following fire trucks around, adopting stylish neo- couservative political stances, and burying its head in the sand when it comes to the great ecological crisis the world is facing. it is my belief that when future journatisin students, if Chere are any, poke through the headlines and tapes left aver from the 1970s, "80s and '90s, they will be shaking dieir heads over the way most of the media have covered the story of the breakdown of the planetary biosphere during the last half-century. Or rather, failed to cover it. They will note that stories about the accelerating drama of collaps- ing evo-systems was relegated, overwhelmingly, to the back pages and third packs of news shows. Maybe it’s because, in the pur- suit of their journalism degrees, today's generation of reporters didn’t bother to check out en- vironmental studies, and the previous generation doesn’t believe things can be as bad as they are. In the rush to cater to specialized markets, and to avoid upsetting family audiences, the media today struggle to be upbeat. A planet-wide eco-crisis is the last thing sales managers and adver- tisers want to hear about, It is also, of course, the last thing any of us want to hear about. Accordingly, it is the last thing politicians aspiring to public office want to talk about. You can see how the knot gets tied. Because the media are suf- fering from eco-fatigus, the grim tidings about the biosphere barely filter out, and it becomes the soul of wit again to laugh at people warning about the sky falling (at a time when it literally is). if environmental issues are be- ing ignored in this election, it is because the media have lost inter- est. If reporters started hounding candidates with environmental questions, and editors and pro- ducers played the responses up, the environment would quickly enough ‘‘become’’ important. To the extent that vital en- vironmental matters are indeed being ignored, it is the media’s fault more than the politicians’, I would say. The politicians, after all, are only sheep. AVAILAE Lonsdale & i9th Niedical Clinic ENGLISH | AT SYLVAN * Solf neced, independent learning * Multimedia computer teaching system ® Practice speaking in privacy * Learn al own pace © Students of all ages fitz SYLNAN tA LEARNING ° CENTRE" NORTHSHORE 985-6811 & Open 9am - 9pm: 365 days a year 1940 Lonsdale Ave. (just south of London Drugs) No appointment necessary. Your Understanding Realtor SONIA ANDERSON It's your move... Call today. Bus: 926-6011 Res: 926-1086 XA peace ROYAL LePAGE te apanial OFFER FROM SEPT. 18 TO 25/93 STEEL-MON [ROM WORKS 137 & 139-1365 Welch St., N. Vancouver elutetoto OZ CaROp. 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