Climate change exists but it’s good for business and actions to prevent it are questionable, according to the Business Day section of the New York Times on Tuesday[i]. The front-page story illustrates the climate change news paradigm. I am here to illustrate its flaws. Before I explain the objectives of my blog, let’s jump right into the analysis and then bring it all together. In case you missed the article, the page features a map of the Arctic Circle with new shipping routes opening because of shrinking polar ice[ii]. The headline, “Amid the Peril, a Dream Fulfilled,” notes the historical search for a northeast passage. The “Peril” part is instantly delegitimized in the lead by natural imagery of “plenty of walruses [and] some pods of beluga whales.” Melting icecaps are framed as the “silver lining” of climate change.
The biggest problem I have with the article is that it’s author, Andrew E. Kramer, says that “now” scientists agree that the ice caps are melting, a fact that literate folks have known for a decade or more. “Environmental scientists” have known this fact for even longer and had Mr. Kramer actually interviewed them, they would have said that consensus is not a recent development. Kramer did not quote a single scientist in his report. He attributes only one scientific group’s predictions, giving politicians and executives primacy and recency.
Kramer commits other injustices. By citing “30 or 40 years” until the ice is gone he undermines the current crisis, framing it with a time-scale signifying the chance for a smart investment and downplaying the tragedy of the current polar condition. He also includes a tidbit about the new shipping lanes “saving fuel,” another detail that is misleading and out of context.
Perhaps I should go easier on Kramer. I mean after all, this is the business page. What should I expect? Maybe I should applaud Kramer and the New York Times for even covering the biggest crisis of our generation. I have been critical thus far but there is an optimist way to read the article. Perhaps by not quoting an individual scientist and instead referring to their group he is actually bolstering their claims, turning science into social proof.
Michael Parenti suggests that news media can have unintended consequences, like reminding readers of the privatized profits causing and caused by climate change[iii]. I’m not a business executive, so I can’t say whether the article is helpful or detrimental to corporate interests. Personally, the article makes my blood boil. The socialized costs of climate change are left out. And that’s the real shame of it.
Overall, the article is a great place to start my blog because it illustrates my topic. I will attempt to uncover the failures of individualist anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change science in the mainstream media. Individualism, although a highly complex theoretical concept, is boiled down to two elements for the purposes of my blog: ethical proximity and consumerism. In the case of this article, hiding the social costs indicates a proximal scale of ethical concern[iv]. This article is not concerned with the 99 percent of readers (in the quasi rhetorical sense, as used by the Occupy Wall Street protests) and instead encourages financial investment. In any case, investment in production is connected to the consumerist solutions prevalent in deviant journalism (as defined by Parenti[v]) that suggest individualist solutions to climate change, as the article suggests investment in the societal structure causing climate change. My blog will focus on journalism that attempts to get the science right. I will follow the rhetoric and framing of scientist-activists since they began referring exclusively to climate change instead of global warming, which has it’s own metaphorical implications.
I come to this blog as a journalist, a mediamaker and media student at a time when the news industry is simultaneously shrinking, restructuring, and suffering from contentious debates of its role in a warring, polarized world. My disillusionment from the mainstream has forced me to pursue new ethical horizons. Martin Bell introduced his “journalism of attachment”[vi] upon the industry’s precipice but the academic jury is still out on that proposal. My blog will eventually look at Bell and others’ cutting-edge solutions. I hope to use this blog to make suggestions for journalism of climate change and other contemporary problems inherent to global capitalism. I hope to chart my own path into journalism and come out with my soul in tact. I might even help pull some carbon out of the atmosphere. We are stuck with this planet so the sky truly is the limit.
Follow the progress of the academic essay I am producing concurrently with this blog. Feel free to comment or recommend additional literature – we are all in this together.
[i] Schmidt, Charles W. "A Closer Look at Climate Change Skepticism." Environmental Health Perspectives 118.12 (2010): A536
[ii] Kramer, Andrew E. "Amid the Peril, a Dream Fulfilled." New York Times 18 Oct. 2011, National ed., Business Day sec.: B1+. Print.
[iii] Parenti, Michael. Inventing Reality: the Politics of News Media. New York: St. Martin's, 1993. Print.
[iv] Thompson, John B. The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Standford UP, 1995. Print
[v] Parenti...
[vi] Bell, Martin. In Harm's Way. Bath, England: Chivers, 1997. Print.