Passion and Purity: Strange Bedfellows in Environmental Journalism

In “They Walk The Line“, top environment reporters talk about journalism vs. activism. Grist Magazine preface the article with the tension between simply reporting facts dispassionately or engaging activism in the face of daunting environmental problems such as global warming, biodiversity loss, and fossil fuel consumption, to name a few. I find it quite interesting as I read about the goals and opinions of several preeminent environmental journalists in the field.

In such a politically charged realm of work as environmental journalism, the average reader can easily be frustrated by what appears as biased reporting—either too far on the side of big business, or too far on the side of environmental fanaticism. On the other hand, an average spectator to the political and economic battles around environmental stewardship may also be perplexed by a journalist’s reluctance to join the fray. Surely these reporters have a personal interest in the outcome of these battles? Shouldn’t they tell me which side I should be on?

To be honest, as an environmental engineer interested in policy, I’ve always thought this is what they were doing. To me, shepherding the passions of readers with environmental sensibilities and interests in the science of such matters was intrinsic to the business of environmental journalism. Today, I have been challenged by Grist Magazine’s article to re-evaluate my vantage point towards the writing.

After reading Felicity Barringer, Michael Grunwald, Elizabeth Kolbert, Andrew Revkin, and Ross Gelbspan’s accounts of their goals, challenges, and career evolutions, I realize that it has not been the writers’ intentions which have directed my impressions of environmental problems, but their skill in covering them. Their anecdotes encourage me to consider that maybe it is a combination of their skill in making mundane science headline news, investigative instincts, and propensity to strictly adhere to the facts of the matter that color my beliefs about the environmental state of the world.

After hearing from them personally (or as personally as reading Grist’s article can allow), I am lead to think that maybe, just maybe, the facts do speak for themselves…