After the Fire

Ashley Ahearn
| September 5, 2009 11:49 AM TrackBacks (0) Comments (0)
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(Photo: www.european-aircrane.com)

 

The Angeles fire has now burned over 140,000 acres of Southern California.  I'm listening to NPR and the host of KPCC is interviewing a woman from Bassett hound rescue.  Yesterday when I listened in the morning, there were three to four interviews with people who had been evacuated from their homes and one interview with another animal rescue shelter that had been evacuated.  NPR in Washington covered the deaths of two firefighters whose truck overturned when attempting to rescue inmates from a prison camp in the burning forest.

 

The L.A. Times has diligently covered the hourly progress, number of homes burned and  acreage lost throughout the week, as well as the heroic efforts and enormous sacrifices of the firefighters. 

 

These are the human stories, the stories you cover right out of the gate.  But the problem with a lot of the coverage of fires is that it stops with the fire.  Once the fire's out, the news cycle trundles on.  The science, environmental and health angles are covered in the aftermath, or not at all. 

 

On September 1st the L.A. Times wrote a story about the environmental impact of the fire.  The article didn't do much more than pull heartstrings with descriptions of dying rabbits and forlorn mule deer.  There was no mention of how fire factors into this landscape - how certain flora and fauna depend on fires to complete their lifecycles, or how the frequency of intense fires in this region is increasing.  It was a first-hand account of the fire.  Important coverage, to be sure, but I'm still hungering for the in-depth story from the ashes. 

 

There are so many angles on the fire story.  Thousands of gallons of flame retardants have been poured over this fire.  Thousands of tons of CO2 have been released from this fire (more than the yearly output of several of the refineries in L.A. combined).  Thousands of acres of wildlife habitat have been destroyed.  Particulate levels have risen, raising concerns about asthma and other long-term human health problems. How might the fire affect our water quality, marine habitats or pollutant loads in this region in the future? How about a story on the incredible significance of the research conducted using the hubble telescope.  The magic happened on Mt. Wilson, which came close to destruction in the flames 

 

It seems to me that when the flames go out, the real journalistic work begins.    




Walling ourselves in, boxing ourselves out.

Ashley Ahearn
| August 20, 2009 3:47 PM TrackBacks (0) Comments (0)
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(The Danger of Walls: A remnant of the Iron Curtain between Slovakia and Austria, Ashley Ahearn)



We all like to think we're independent.  Hell, in highschool I was convinced I was free to do anything my little heart desired.  That was because I had a warm bed and a stocked fridge to come home to.  Or as Professor Suro puts it, "Children feel independent but their ability to eat is dependent on somebody else.  If you're not making the money, you're not really free."

 

In his most recent lecture, Suro was comparing journalists to children.  (Ahem? Pardon me? Feathers ruffled).  But he's right.  We've got a lot of growing up to do.  The truth is, journalists must come to grips with the fact that we cannot wall ourselves off from our "parents" i.e. "funders" and it's naïve to think they're not influencing our reporting. 

 

In fact, denying their influence is dangerous, as Theodore Glasser and Marc Gunther point out in their chapter in The Press titled "The Legacy of Autonomy in American Journalism".

 

"The strongest of walls and the boldest of lines bring journalists no closer to the level of control where forces beyond the newsroom and even beyond journalism define the limits of journalistic autonomy."

 

If we aren't going to give up this whole "pure as baby lambs" autonomy thing and get our hands dirty dealing with the business side of things, or at least informing ourselves about it, then someone else will. 


Dean Wilson gave a recent talk on the subject of "Sustainable Innovation" that is in line with Gunther and Glasser's opinions on the issues of autonomy.  Wilson, who has worked in all the major sectors of society - the academic, the governmental, the NGO and the private, says that reaching outside our respective boxes - be they the editorial room of the paper or the advocacy sector of NGO work - is key to innovating. When people travel inside their own tight circles and familiar pathways new ideas don't percolate. 

 

I think that in the context of the changing journalistic environment of today, the journalists who are making it are the ones who are following Wilson's advice.  They're reaching outside of the journalistic community to build partnerships in other sectors.  They're looking at the journalistic business models that don't work and trying to learn from those employing models that do - in all sectors of society.  

 

Forgive me for using Living on Earth as an example, but I believe the funding model for this organization provides a good example of how to sustain a news organization without relying on advertising. LOE has taken a big lesson from the non profit world.  The majority of it's funding comes from grants, mainly from the National Science Foundation.  But the organization also has funders from the private sector. These are often companies with green missions - sustainable investment firms or organic food producers for example.  They can give money to LOE to support coverage of certain issues - climate change and deforestation for example - but they have NO say in how those issues are covered. Steve Curwood, the executive producer, acts singlehandedly as the buffer system between the world of the funders and the world of production.  If producers want to know who their funders are, that information is readily available.  

 

This isn't a flawless system.  When I was producing at Living on Earth we were often living hand to mouth, waiting for the next grant to come through. But Curwood realized that he didn't want his newsroom to be a slave to the next company who wanted to buy advertising from us.  He realized that he needed the private sector, but negotiated those partnerships on his own terms.  He hand-picked our funders and frequently turned away those that were looking to purchase greenwashing for their organizations. 

 

There're a few things to be learned from Living on Earth but, as yet, there's no silver-bullet-winning-example of trans-sector partnership in media.  Bottom line: online news providers sure aren't making money through advertising and old-school print newspapers aren't selling.  It's time to give up the autonomy myth and start thinking outside the box.   




Public Relations and Journalism - Go team?

Ashley Ahearn
| August 19, 2009 7:59 AM TrackBacks (0) Comments (1)

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As a producer at Living on Earth, Public Radio International's science and environment radio program, I was constantly getting phone calls from public relations people with story pitches. 

 

According to my surrounding cubicle dwellers, my tone of voice during these phone calls ranged from "impatient-dismissive" (what one might associate with someone dealing with a very nice, if misinformed, telemarketer) to "vaguely disgusted" (that attitude often invoked during encounters with pushy used car salesmen).

 

So naturally, when, at a recent dinner, Jerry Swerling, of the Annenberg School of Public Relations Studies, stressed the need for "more interdependence" between journalists and PR folks, I threw up a little bit in my mouth.

 

Swerling stressed the "shared interests and concerns" of journalists and PR people. Now, I may share the "interest and concern" for clear crisp transmission of information, with folks in PR, but I believe our sharing stops there.  This is not to say that in my private life I don't share some of the interests of Conservation International or the World Wildlife Foundation, but that's my private life, and I am not being paid by them to disseminate said "clear crisp information".  Therein lies the main difference. 

 

But Swerling gave a good presentation, which, at the very least, forced me to reassess just what science PR folks bring to the table, and to remind me of the fact that the good ones really are invaluable.

 

In science reporting one might envision the numbers of scholarly articles being published in the hundreds of journals out there as a cascade - a continuous, thunderous roar of information really - that bombards journalists from all sides.  Does it make me a bad journalist if, when an informed PR person calls me up and says, "You know, you might want to check out X report on marine fisheries health," I investigate further?

 

Here's a story I did for Living on Earth after one such phone call from a good PR contact. 

 

What started out as a look at one fish stock study morphed into a weight-of-evidence survey of the research available about fish stocks in the Northeast (a tactic discussed in  Sharon Dunwoody's article). From the research-paper trail I then dug into a piece of pretty dry policy (the Magnuson-Stevens Act) and how that policy affects the lives of real people - namely fishermen.  I did quote the scientist in the study that my PR contact recommended, but I had come across his research while covering the fisheries beat before, and I felt he was a reliable expert in the region, having directed the New England Fisheries department of NMFS. 

 

I then went out into the field to talk to people in the fishing industry in order to give this study some context. In the end, we didn't even use the study as our news hook, or even mention the study in any specific way at all, we hooked our story to the policy, which was in the process of being renewed. 

 

I suppose in an ideal world, if I was really on top of things, I wouldn't have needed a call from a PR person to get me to check in on a major piece of fisheries policy, but as is true with most environmental reporters, fisheries was just one of about 5 beats I was covering for Living on Earth.  Would I have done this story if it weren't for that first phone call?  Probably not.  However, would my reporting on this have been different and more straight-off-the-press-release if I hadn't been covering the fisheries beat for the previous two years?  Definitely.

 

At the end of the day, PR people are tools, and I mean that in the best sense of the word. So, while I know we're all tired of talking about the importance of specializing as journalists, what we're doing here is building the expertise to know how to use our tools correctly.  


(Photo courtesy of Sue Allen)

Video Fun

Ashley Ahearn
| August 17, 2009 10:03 AM TrackBacks (0) Comments (2)
To practice my BBC five shot and interview filming I taped the USC Spirit team.  Having never attended a school with  a good football team, I'm finding all this pomp and circumstance very interesting. They perform in front of 92,000 people.  That's probably more people than will ever hear a story I produce. 

 


And here's a short interview with Jennifer Schoendorf, a psychology major in her senior year.  She's been a member of the team since she was a freshman. 
 

"Crisis of the Commons?"

Ashley Ahearn
| August 14, 2009 4:00 PM TrackBacks (0) Comments (4)

Online media has opened the door to a brave new world of reader interaction.

 

 

The internet has changed the way people consume news.  As Tom Rosenstiel, of the Project for Excellence in Journalism puts it: "News consumption is shifting from being a passive act - tell me a story - to a proactive one - answer my question."

Almost every major online news organization gives readers the option of commenting on the articles it publishes. This has created, as Professor Andrew Lih of the Annenberg School at USC says, a "commons" for news consumers and a "forum" for exchange. 

But in this wild wild west of interactive news, what are the dangers?  If a news site lets readers comment on the reporting, how should those comments be moderated and by whom?  The journalist? The organization?  At what point do we cross the line into censorship of public voice?

A recent blog posting on the Christian Science Monitor's website highlights one risk of open comment sections when it comes to online coverage of climate change. According to the CSM, climate change deniers (some from lobby groups) post skeptical messages (often the same message over and over again) in the comment sections of stories relating to climate change all over the web.

While I believe in the internet as a public forum for human expression, and I believe news consumers have every right to comment on the news, this situation presents an interesting conundrum.  The public forum, in this instance, is being hijacked by the private sector in order to promote private interests. 

Climate change deniers seek to spread doubt and uncertainty about the body of scientific evidence that is showing that the earth's climate is changing and humans are largely responsible.  This tactic was also employed by the tobacco industry when the health effects of tobacco gained widespread media coverage in the 80's and 90's.  Skepticism, while important in any fair dialogue, is an excellent tactic to delay action.   

As a journalist, I see it as my obligation, and the obligation of any organization that employs me, to get the clearest science reporting possible into the ears of as many who are willing to listen. If someone comes to the website where I presume to be fulfilling this obligation and they finish reading a piece of reporting and go on to read the comments section and are left with a false sense of doubt over the veracity of the science I cover, I believe that I am not serving my readers to the best of my ability.  But by the same token,  my job perhaps my job is to get the information out there, and let readers be the judge of all the information (or misinformation) at hand.   

I present this scenario merely as food for thought - and I look forward to reading the comments that might follow.  


"Write to your audience"

Ashley Ahearn
| August 13, 2009 6:12 PM TrackBacks (0) Comments (0)
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Despite shrinking budgets and growing demand for multimedia and interactive reporting, mainstream media can't afford to lose specialized journalists.  


Professor Robert Hernandez, formerly of the Seattle Times and now at USC Annenberg, spoke recently about multimedia reporting - where it came from and where it's headed. But my interest was piqued when he turned to the subject of audience.  How does a news website get and keep readers?  What kinds of stories boost web traffic and how should those stories be treated in relation to other content?

(Photo courtesy of Karen J. Hatzigeorgiou) 

These are questions many news providers grapple with every day.  If the stories in the city paper about the local football team are more popular than the stories about international talks on climate change (which will almost universally be the case) the smart business model would dictate that funding and staff for coverage of climate talks be cut and more resources be put towards developing better sports coverage.

If you extend that trajectory, you arrive at the present problem in news coverage: shrinking budgets = fewer reporters covering more news while trying to please as many readers as possible.  This is not news to anyone in the industry, but when Hernandez stressed the need to "write to your audience," as a science reporter I immediately began thinking about just who my audience might be.  If I work for a news organization whose audience is more interested in football than science, then it might be time to find a new audience. 

That's exactly what's happening in the industry.  The science desk at the L.A. Times has been shrinking as the paper, like so many others in the country, struggles to stay afloat.  Marla Cone covered science at the Times for years, regularly breaking stories about corruption in government regulation of the petrochemical industry and the emerging body of scientific research on the human health effects of exposure to certain petrochemicals.  Her reporting was at the forefront of the media's coverage in this area but Marla Cone no longer writes for the L.A. Times.

Cone has landed in the position of Editor in Chief at Environmental Health News where she covers her chosen beat to her hearts content.  Environmental Health News is a website that works as both a news producer and an aggregator of news specifically in the area of environmental health issues (lately they've branched out into climate change coverage and a few other subjects, but their bread and butter has always been human/environment health interactions).  By covering a very specific topic, EHN is, by definition, targeting a pretty narrow body of readers - namely those who are interested in environmental health. 

I have the utmost respect for the folks at Environmental Health News and I visit the site regularly for story ideas, but, in a way, the public has "lost" Marla Cone.  She's moved from a paper with huge circulation and impact to a relatively small site that seems to be geared more to the scientific and journalistic communities than the general public. Cone's story is just one example of a larger trend of specialization in the industry, as the Pew report "State of the News Media" points out.  

The challenge facing the industry today is to find a way to keep journalists like Marla Cone in the public eye.  Reporters who have developed a knowledge base in a certain field should be valued for their expertise as conduits of information from, in Marla Cone's case, the scientific community, to the public.  

Although Dean Gillman's recent address to the Annenberg Specialized Journalism program may have been a fairly ignorant and uninformed critique of the current state of journalism; as a constitutional scholar, Gillman is right on in calling on the media to inform society.  This has been our duty for as long as anyone has called him or herself a journalist.  To that end, it appears to me that we must bring the best specialist-journalists to the broadest public, and fight this tendency in online media to sequester good reporting into highly specialized web-havens.  This is not to say that these sites should be eradicated or that they don't serve a very important purpose, but the key to an informed public must be the incorporation of these sites, and the information they provide - in whatever form necessary, into a broader, better, more in-depth news domain.  

The (media) revolution will be specialized.