Mark Dowie on environmental journalism in the age of the airhead anchorclone and why the term "alternative media" is a tactical error.
Mark Dowie is a former publisher and editor of Mother Jones magazine and former editor-at-large of InterNation, a transnational feature syndicate based in New York. He is the author of four books, including "Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century," published in 1995 by MIT Press and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He is currently at work on a history of American foundations, tentatively entitled "The Philanthropic Imagination," for MIT Press.
Dowie’s investigative journalism has won 17 major awards, including four National Magazine Awards. In 1992 he received the Media Alliance’s Meritorious Award for Lifetime Achievement; in 1995 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Calif. His award-winning articles include: "Pinto Madness" (first report on Ford Pinto and gas tank), "A Case of Corporate Malpractice" (Dalkon Shield), "The Illusion of Safety" (series on products chemicals), "The Corporate Crime of the Century" (export of banned and hazardous products to undeveloped countries), "Redwood Summer" (environmental confrontation with logging industry), "The Rothschild Years" ($39 purloined while SEC ignored), and "The War for the West" (militia movement).
The following interview was conducted by Casey Walker, Editor/Publisher of the journal Wild Duck Review, in November 1998 in Pt. Reyes, CA.
CASEY WALKER: Describe the problems as you see them for communicating ecological sensibilities through media for mainstream culture?
MARK DOWIE: First, "media" carries two separate meanings in our culture. There’s the McLuhanesque idea that media is everything upon which ideas and information are transmitted, which includes print, broadcast, stage, screen, computer, Internet, and telephone media. Then there’s the more common definition of media as the press, which often defines itself as "the media." When thinking about communicating ecological sensibilities in media, we should include all media.
A large part of the problem is that people in media are more cynical than the material merits, generally. I’ve worked with the press for almost 30 years, and its particularly cynical view is a big reason that environmental coverage doesn’t get a fair shake. The press in America, as I see it, is one big camera somewhere over Kansas City that rotates to focus in on anything that is hot, trendy, sexy, compelling and will keep people watching or reading. That’s my own cynical view, of course, but there’s something to be said for it. The press is very, very trendy and the environment is not a part of the trend anymore. The environment was a hot topic in the early 70’s, and the press paid attention to it; but, almost inevitably, the press became as cynical as they do about any story they cover a lot.
Since then, we’ve seen a rise of contrarian writers who now actually do as well today as any reporter with strong environmental sensibilities. Reporters such as John Tierney in The New York Times, and Greg Easterbrook at Newsweek, are "hot" writers and get big articles in The Atlantic and in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. It’s very hard for ecologically-oriented reporters to get that kind of coverage in mass media. It can always be done in the small press, but mass media is a problem. Once, almost every television station in this country had an environmental reporter, and I think there may be two left today. There are some local TV stations that will cover the environment as part of a general assignment, but there used to be whole programs on the environment and national documentaries. We hardly see any of these anymore. And there’s barely an environmental column left in the news weeklies. There are 1,300 members in the Society for Environmental Journalists, but too many of them are regurgitating public relations material. There are some very good reporters in SEJ, but it’s rare that their work finds its way into mass media.
Beyond the general fatigue of any story, has the press, the public or both lost the desire for investigative reporting? What explains the paucity of hard-hitting, well-researched stories?
Investigative reporting, in America, runs through cycles of hot and cold. Each cycle runs about 25 years. There’ll be one big story like Watergate that will turn the press back into an investigative medium for five, six years before it begins to seriously cool. To make things worse today, the press has become increasingly superficial, particularly broadcast media — save NPR and a few local stations such as yours, KVMR in Nevada City, or Pacifica — and its superficiality can be explained quite simply: money. Ninety-nine percent of broadcast media revenue now comes from advertising, with a somewhat lower percentage, – 65-70% – for print media. Commercial broadcast media is an advertising engine, nothing more. In television, about 70% of ad revenue comes from the 100 largest corporations in America. So corporate advertising drives television, which exists to seduce consumers into watching commercials. If people don’t keep that verity in mind at all times while talking about TV as a medium with which to communicate ideas, sensibilities, values, and politics, then they’re being naive. That’s not why it’s there.
Now, there was an era in the history of television when the leadership knew and accepted the fact that good, solid news reporting was a losing operation. They considered it a service that needed to be offered to keep people watching the rest of the stuff — particularly the ads. Leadership doesn’t believe that anymore. News divisions now have to carry themselves financially in television. And the only way the news can carry itself is to make its content entertaining.
Watch the news today on TV for awhile. You’ll notice that more and more stations are running background music to dramatic stories. Sometimes it will just be deep, heartbeat tones — boom, boom, boom — behind a story that is sad or particularly dramatic. Or, for a chase scene or a fight-or-flight situation, there’ll be intense, metallic music in the background. Listen to the voice of contemporary newscasters. They do "Gunga Din" bits like they’re reading Richard Halliburton to you! They’re not just telling you the news. The old Edward R. Morrow, here-it-is, straight-to-the-point, take-it-or-leave-it, make-up-your-own-mind kind of reporting just doesn’t exist anymore in television or AM radio. It’s all been dramaticized, theatricalized. CNN is trying to hold onto traditional news, but it’s up against the competition from MSNBC and other all-day news programming. It’s all becoming more tabloid, more dramatic, more entertaining all the time. Infomercials now carry material packaged as entertainment. It’s all getting blended together — "infotainment."
Where do important values and sensibilities get broadcasted? They don’t. By entertainment standards, serious subjects like environmental degradation are seen as downers — depressing and complex. Advertisers won’t buy it. They want to see a show with good music, a good-looking airhead, and the rest of it.
Yesterday, while we were out walking, you said, "Most environmental journalists do not understand media, and that’s their problem." Will you elaborate?
They don’t understand that their work and workplace product is a sales instrument. It’s not an instrument for projecting ideas and hard information independent of serving the commercial mix. Ted Turner recently addressed the annual convention for the Society for Environmental Journalists and admitted right off that he had trouble getting environmental stories onto CNN. The Turner Foundation is one of the major environmental funders and they do have a half-hour environmental show run by Peter Dykstra, which is very good, but it doesn’t air on prime time, is marginalized in the operation, and loses money.
Now Ted Turner really believes that the planet is in serious trouble — he pumps tons of money into activism and gave one billion to the U.N. — part of it for environmental work. But he can’t get good environmental information into his own, or Time Warner’s programming?! The board’s argument is always: Who will buy it, who will sponsor it? No corporation will underwrite a good — "good" as we know it — environmental program.
I worked with Robert Redford for six, eight months, helping him design a 14-part, independently produced, public broadcasting series on environmental issues. He chose 14 issues that had been untouched by the media — avant garde stories that included things such as atmospheric, climate and ozone science that would move the public discourse into new conceptual ground. A number of us worked very hard on it; he hired expensive consultants and found an excellent producer, Renata Simone, to put it together. It was not lacking for talent, authority, or ideas. In the end it simply lacked sponsorship. There wasn’t enough money in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to buy it and support it, and he was forced to look elsewhere. No corporation would pick it up and Redford had to drop it.
It used to be that you could get good books on environmental subjects published fairly easily. It’s harder than ever now. There are two or three presses now – Gibb Smith, Island Press, and one or two others – that publish almost nothing but good environmental books. But they are having a hard time selling books – even in Amazon.com or Borders – along with a million other books. There are very few bookstores with an environmental section. More commonly, there’s a "nature" section with Sierra Club photo books. Serious, nonfiction books on environmental issues are less than one-third of a shelf at Borders. Books are no longer a useful medium for environmental thinking.
Will you speak to corporate goals and values in media and general awareness of them?
There’s no question that corporations are the dominant institution in our civilization. Corporate culture not only dominates commerce, but our churches, our foundations and nonprofits, and, of course, it dominates our media. Our government agencies are being redesigned to the corporate model. Corporate culture is our culture.
Now, media is interesting on the subject of corporations. I’m also a member of a national organization called Investigative Reporters and Editors, with about 3,200 members, and it polls its members from time to time to see what interests we have, what we deem worthy of investigation. Last time I saw the count, there were only six members, myself included, who said they were interested in investigating corporations. Six out of 3,200?! Why? We are living so inside corporate culture, we fail to see how insidious it actually is. The only contemporary philosopher I know who has seen it clearly is John Ralston Saul in Canada. He understands the extent to which corporate culture has pervaded all cultures globally. It is not only profoundly undemocratic, it is anti-democratic.
Ben Bagdikian’s book, The Media Monopoly, is in its 6th edition, trying to keep up with the concentration of media. Before he can get one edition out, media has concentrated itself so quickly through new mergers and acquisitions that another edition must be done. His first documentation cited about 80% of media owned by about 27 corporations. Now, it’s something like 90% of media owned by 5 corporations. That concentration is accelerating, especially as big moguls like Eisner, Murdoch, and Newhouse compete.
We have incontrovertible facts about human population, extinctions, a number of problems that demand serious attention and action, yet have no place in mainstream media or the public mind to document or discuss them. What can be done?
I have gone back and forth on this question. When I was younger, I thought the best way to save the world was to scare people, to get them frightened by the horrifying facts: polar ice-caps melting, ozone depletion, pesticides in our food, and so forth. But I soon discovered that people don’t like being frightened. So it’s not a good strategy for an environmental communicator. Information has to be projected in some way, of course. But environmental stories can be terrifying and people grow numb. I agree with you that if we suspend the word ‘environment’ and just communicate sensibilities, we’re better off.
I may sound elitist, but most people with an ecological sensibility have gone down a long path to find it. Most of the people media are trying to reach are at the very first step of that path.
Worldviews can be powerfully carried by film, video, television, books. But we need to explore and test new ways of projecting eco-sensibilities and story. Thinking cultures are very, very rare. Philistines have always outnumbered thinkers. Yet, thinkers are powerful if they learn to project their ideas. So, what’s the strategy of projecting good values in media? How do we get it in there?
We need to create new media. Wild Duck Review is new media. It’s a noncommercial, very intelligently produced journal. One of the problems of the world you’re floating in is that these journals often refer to themselves as "alternative media," and that is a psychological mistake. This is not alternative media, it is traditional media. Consider the publications of the founding fathers. In that light, you are doing the work of Patrick Henry, of Thomas Paine. That’s traditional media. When the First Amendment was drafted, it was for the protection of the Wild Ducks of this world. Our forefathers were not protecting airbrushed, centerfold nudes or regurgitated corporate press releases in the racing forms of capitalism such as the Wall Street Journal. They were protecting the projection of radical ideas and values, the arguments of discourse. It’s all gotten out of hand. Hustler magazine and The Wall Street Journal are alternatives to what the founding fathers of this country, the authors of democracy, had in mind when they drafted the First Amendment. You must see that what you are doing with Wild Duck is traditional, very traditional. All publishers and broadcasters of similar media have to argue that to our supporters, our sponsors, and our funders. We should be supported for being independent, for staying independent, for being important to what this society is about. . .for being traditional, not "alternative."
Where are the poets, scientists, philosophers, historians, intellectuals who can deliver the arguments of discourse — and how might they become motivated to communicate with the public?
They’re everywhere, but mostly in the academy. Unfortunately, the academy has not learned to communicate with the public. Look at the media that flows from our institutions of higher learning. It’s turgid and uninspiring. Academic writers constantly refer to one another by their last names — as if it’s an insider’s club. They’re breathing their own exhaust. Their discourse is arcane, insular, and boring. If they want to project discourse — which is fascinating and very important in itself as a subject — then they have to learn how to communicate with the public.
Colleges and universities have always been elite institutions, and exacerbate their elitism by the way they communicate. Those who project outward to the public in a popular style or format begin to lose the respect of the academy. If academics want tenure, to have salaries and benefits, that’s a threatening problem for them. The ivory tower image is an appropriate image — it is incredibly insular — and the terribly exciting discourse they know so well is not reaching the audience it needs to reach. I don’t have a great deal of faith in academic media.
One of the problems in journalism, which was argued persuasively in Anne and Paul Ehrlich’s Betrayal of Science and Reason, is the notion that all good journalism should arrive at equivocation: "On the one hand this, and on the other hand that." As a result, many problems that most scientists agree on as life and death problems, such as human overpopulation, climate instability, biodiversity losses, and so forth, become obfuscated, recede from the public mind, and make democratic political action difficult. How do you see appropriate scientific reporting evolving?
I think science reporting in mass media is really lacking. Very few science reporters are scientists or are well-grounded in science. The scientific academy is aware of it and is offering curricula to journalists — which is a good step. A reporter can go to MIT now and, despite being indoctrinated with a lot of technophilia, he or she can get a lot of science demystified.
It’s not just the mass media that abuses science. Science is abused by scientists too. There’s the saying, "For every Ph.D., there’s an equal and opposite Ph.D." The media concept of "balanced coverage" accommodates contrarians such as Julian Simon, Fred Singer, or Patrick Michaels, as individual scientists against the thousand scientists who believe the opposite. The average person reads the newspaper and it looks balanced because Singer is quoted saying there’s absolutely no problem with ozone depletion. This is a big problem. The press should be saying, "There are 2,000 scientists who think there is a problem with ozone, and there are four scientists who don’t. And three of the four who don’t are supported by the Fossil Fuels Association." That’s good reporting, but we don’t see it. There are academies that will whore to the point of taking paid contrarians into the academy, giving them credentials and credibility. It’s terrible. Scientists can be whored like any other professionals, of course; some will become "experts" on a side of an issue that they know, objectively, is wrong, simply because they’re being paid $500 an hour to testify.
Will you describe your investigative report printed in The Nation (July 6, 1998) on Gina Kolata’s science journalism in The New York Times?
Gina Kolata has always interested me for two reasons. One, she is an absolutely brilliant reporter. She has a good grasp of science and she is fast. From the point of view of watching a working journalist, she is just amazing. She is also the sister of Judy Bari — whom I covered until her death from breast cancer — one of the best minds in the environmental movement. Judy understood we couldn’t win the environmental battle without bringing labor, the working class — and not just the middle class but the working poor — into the struggle and introducing them to science. She paid attention to the people who were on the vulnerable edge of our economy, particularly those who were affected by environmental regulation. That was Judy’s life work — and it was tough, tough work. If she had lived another ten years, I think she would have succeeded. Loggers are beginning to understand that sustainable yield forestry is good for their future, and that clear-cutting is a terrible mistake that will wipe out their whole culture and economy in less than a generation. Judy was getting that message through.
I was also interested in the family dynamics of these two sisters, who were very close in age, both very smart, and yet despised each other’s values and politics. I spent a lot of time looking at their lives and developed material my editor didn’t include in The Nation article because she thought it was a bit invasive, too ad hominem.
However, the reason I interrupted my own work on a book and took on Gina Kolata was because of one story she did in The New York Times that was one too many. I’ve been reading her carefully for ten years — she’s been with The New York Times for eleven years. A lot of her work is excellent. Her coverage of pure science is terrific, her stories on mathematics (with one exception) are terrific. But there have been three or four areas that border on environmental issues (in the broadest sense of the word, in that they deal with drugs and toxins that find their way into our bodies), in which she has taken a hard, pro-technology, pro-corporate line on products or issues that are very controversial: silicone breast implants, irradiated food, experimental AIDS drugs, and breast cancer. In fact, Gina took a strong position that breast cancer has no environmental etiology at all, and took every opportunity to make that point even as her sister, Judy, was struggling with breast cancer. Gina reviewed "Rachel’s Daughters," a film made on breast cancer, and strongly criticized the film’s inquiry of environmental causes.
Do you see Gina Kolata’s scientific judgment as primarily distorted by the tensions between herself and Judy?
Yes, I do. They never outgrew a classic sibling rivalry. It simply became an intellectual rivalry. They would go back to Sunday dinner as young adults, and everything would be fine until they were both present. They would scream at each other across the table. One ex-husband told me that, and one ex-fiancee. It didn’t stop until Judy died.
However, I do think my editor was right not to make much of the relationship. What needed to be in the media was not a story about two sisters competing, but a deconstruction of Gina Kolata’s work. I took one hundred of Gina’s six hundred stories in The New York Times, and read them carefully. Then, I took many of those and went back and re-reported them as if I were the original reporter. I called all her sources — the ones she named — and found out there were many she had, in fact, interviewed at great length and had not included in the stories. I’m not saying she’s a dishonest person, but I am saying she has practiced dishonest journalism and wasted a great talent in those stories.
Now, I also did it because Kolata works for The New York Times, which has evolved in recent years from the national paper of record to the global paper of record. Any reporter or group of reporters in the world's "paper of record" who covers issues of life and death — scientific matters or environmental matters — should be held to a much higher standard, it seems to me, than [the one to which] The NewYork Times is holding Gina Kolata.
Given the scale of ongoing disintegration, where and how do you see change occurring?
I am not optimistic. I grasp for reasons to be hopeful but they are scarce. The fact that there is a strong, environmental sensibility in our often buried, often misguided, but real civilization gives me hope. If 70 to 80% of American people are comfortable calling themselves environmentalists, and even a higher percentage want to think of their water as clean, that their air will not give them cancer, that their food is healthy, that their soil is arable and will sustain agriculture for generations, and offenses to these are taken seriously, there are values here to defend. What is needed are "proving events," events that prove a point. For example, people of color in the United States have been disproportionately exposed to toxins and pollutions all along. This has been so blatantly obvious it should have been seen by everyone, but it wasn’t until a specific event that this consciousness rose to the surface.
People of color, who had derided environmentalists for preempting their agenda of civil rights, eventually came to see the substrate of environmental issues underlying civil issues. One major toxic problem that affects the health of a large number of people — whether it is Love Canal or Times Beach or Arthur, Illinois or Chester, Pennsylvania — will engage whole classes of people who really "get it." The media cannot ignore Lois Gibbs shrieking at the President of the United States. This story has become lore that will be passed on.
- Casey Walker is the founding editor and publisher of Wild Duck Review (P.O.Box 388, Nevada City, CA 95959; 530-478-0134), a journal featuring essays, poetry, book reviews, memoirs and over 70 interviews to date, with writers, poets, ecologists, cultural critics and politicians.
This interview first appeared in Wild Duck Review; reprinted by permission. Copyright Wild Duck Review, 2000.
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