Writing the Environment in Journalism for - Open Repository.docVIP

Writing the Environment in Journalism for: Crowded Spaces, ed. R.Kerridge and H.Tarlo (University Press of Virginia) In July 2000 an article of mine appeared on the environment pages of the British newspaper The Guardian. (1)It was about the Coto Donana, a world heritage site in Southern Spain and a casual reader would have seen a straightforward piece of reporting on how, two years after it occurred, this beautiful area was recovering from Europes worst toxic spill. (2) The article was illustrated with a striking picture of the animal that symbolises the Donana area: the Iberian lynx. Environmentalists would have felt pleased about the article on two scores. It reminded readers about the poor supervision of toxic chemicals used in mining and the danger they pose to the environment. It also fore-grounded the plight of the Iberian lynx, one of Europes most critically endangered species. The piece looked straightforward but coaxing it into existence was not. Behind its publication was a long saga, involving a press trip, negotiations with campaign groups about propaganda and objectivity, rivalry between journalists and, perhaps most importantly, the struggle to find ways of presenting environmental issues which would win the support of a commissioning editor and capture the audiences attention. This saga is typical and told here to illustrate the themes of the ensuing article. It is about the difficulties of getting such stories placed in the media and the strategies a writer must often resort to. Fundamentally, it is about the values surrounding environmental stories in national newspapers. For a number of years, I have been writing on environment issues as a freelancer for national newspapers in particular for The Guardian. Although not a specialist correspondent I have always, because of my own personal passion for the environment, tried to write about environmental issues both in a regular column on The Guardians op-ed pages (known as the Comment section) and