Environmental reporting in the Environmental reporting in the Zimbabwean pressZimbabwean press

Environment Africa Media WorkshopEnvironment Africa Media Workshop 25 – 26 April 2007 25 – 26 April 2007

Harare Harare

Tigere Chagutah BSc, DMCS, MCMS

Environment Researcher-Writer

SARDC-IMERCSA

This SessionThis Session

BackgroundPatterns of coverageStory characteristicsHidden elementsWhy the current status?

BackgroundBackground

Defining the environmentDefining the environment The simple and the technical Examples -Everything that surrounds anything

- The complex set of physical, geographic, biological, social, cultural and political conditions that surround an individual or organism and that ultimately determines its form and nature of its survival

- Chenje et al “components of the earth, including air, land and water, all layers of the atmosphere, all organic and inorganic matter and living organisms, and the interacting systems that include all of these components.”

Categorising the environmentCategorising the environment

News organisations employ rhetorical news classification (Beats)

All encompassing nature of environment requires multidimensional analysis which is not possible in a 600 word story and in a straight jacket news beat

Environment is thus reported in other news frames amenable to strict word limits and restrictions imposed by gatekeepers

The urban environmentThe urban environment

Growing urban settlements concentrated around areas of economic activity

Industrial and domestic activity puts pressure on resources such as land/water

Large volumes of chemical and biological waste

Mushrooming of slum populations and unplanned urban agriculture

Operation Murambatsvina

The rural environmentThe rural environment

Skewed land tenure has led to high population densities, overgrazing and general over exploitation in some areas and under utilisation in others

Climate extremes exacerbated land degradation

Land reform – mismanagement has worsened the problem in some areas

Putting the environment on Putting the environment on the media agendathe media agenda

“Were the [African] media to be faced with the choice of covering either the natural or the political environment, they should, without any hesitation choose the latter, for in the African context, the mismanagement of the political sphere is the more imminent calamity” – Okigbo 1995

Role of advertisers, politics, sources, advocacy, etc

Patterns of coveragePatterns of coverage

Issue/Beat coverageIssue/Beat coverage

Absolute numbers (TSM above, TS below) show considerable coverage on environmental issues

During this period political considerations play a significant role (consider Op M coverage)

Crime news is dominant

Crime48%

Environment23%

Politics19%

Clean up10%

Crime

28%

Environment

20%

Politics

31%

Clean up

21%

Cycle of coverageCycle of coverage

Cyclic coverage (Issue attention Cycle - same observed for other news beats)

Zero-sum game complementarity – limited space on media agenda

Clean up coverage sustained in TS below (political import)

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Environment Clean up

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Environment Clean up

Front Page storiesFront Page stories

Political stories dominant – The commercial imperative

Clean up stories show political leaning

Environment least favoured as attention grabber

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Crime/Courts Environment Politics Clean up

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Series1

Story characteristicsStory characteristics

Use of picturesUse of pictures

Both papers show high level of picture use ( about 50%) in environmental stories - illustrative

Stand alone pictures often used for environmental stories and rarely in other beats

“a picture is worth more than a thousand words.” OR simplification??

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Crime/Courts Politics

Stand-alone picture

Story w ith picture

No picture

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Crime/Courts Politics

Stand-alonepictureStory w ith picture

No picture

Type of storiesType of stories

Hard news story dominates across beats

Environmental news also dominantly hard news although there are features (not nearly enough as this is the most appropriate story type for environmental news)

Lack of editorials shows editors preoccupation with other issues

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Crime/Courts Politics

Other

New s

Feature

Editorial

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Crime/Courts Politics

Other

New s

Feature

Editorial

Environment story Environment story characteristicscharacteristics

Type of environment storiesType of environment stories

Hard news format shows a tendency towards covering trigger events, disasters and breaking news etc and less of slowly evolving issues and analyses which do well as features

Lack of editorials in TSM (above) shows no concern with enviro issues at the highest level in newsroom

Editorial0%

Feature14%

New s62%

Other24%

Editorial3%

Feature6%

New s67%

Other24%

Themes in environment Themes in environment storiesstories

Uniformity Water and sanitation

in major cities reflected

2007 energy crisis Climate and health

related concerns during period of study reflected

Water and sanitation

42%

Biodiversity Conservation

8%

Energy8%

Climate12%

Human habitat6%

Environment related health

issues12%

Other12%

Water and sanitation

49%

Energy6%

Climate15%

Human habitat15%

Biodiversity Conservation

15%

Environment story headlinesEnvironment story headlines

Significant number of non-specific headlines

Attempt to frame story in favoured news frames

Environment specif ic

headlines74%

Non environment

specif ic headlines

26%

Environment specific

headlines

59%

Non environment

specific headlines

41%

Hidden elementsHidden elements

CDA used to unearth dominant news frames

- Risk, Uncertainty, Fear, Crisis

- Government sources used predominantly (officialdom brings credibility)

- Less independent sources and advocacy groups and environment NGOs

• Pictures also used for framing eg Minister mugshot for credibility

Why the current status? Why the current status? (Concluding views from interviews)(Concluding views from interviews)

Environment news not commercially viable Lack of competence of reporters = lack of

motivation – few want to venture into env reporting therefore very few stories forwarded to news Eds

Other beats command better readership and env is a ‘special interest category’

Lack of resources for going to the site of the story Lack of opportunity for training and no networks or

fora for env reporters etc

Thank You!Thank You!

Tigere Chagutah

tchagutah@sardc.net

http://envirocom.wordpress.com