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Survey of U.S. Environmental Reporters
Covering the environment may be getting more difficult—especially for television and newspaper journalists, according to a new survey by Michigan State University researchers.
That's because nearly a quarter of the environmental journalists working at newspapers and more than 4 in 10 working at television stations are now spending less time reporting about environmental issues than they did one year ago.
More than a third of the reporters say they currently spend no more than one-quarter of their time on the environmental beat and a big majority spend no more than half their time covering environmental stories.
And more than 1 in 4 reporters cited lack of time to do a story properly as a "major" problem they faced. Other "major" problems cited by at least 1 in 5 environmental journalists include a lack of adequate resources for research and travel, a lack of space or air time in which to tell those stories and a lack of interest by editors.
These are some of the findings of a survey of 496 environmental reporters that was conducted by the Environmental Journalism Program at Michigan State University between April and September 1996. The results of the survey -- the largest survey ever done of environmental journalists in the United States -- are being released at the sixth annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists held Oct. 17 to 20, 1996 in St. Louis, Mo.
The survey was conducted by Jim Detjen, Knight Chair in Environmental Journalism; Fred Fico, a journalism professor at MSU; and Xigen Li, a doctoral student in the mass media program in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at MSU. Funding for the research was provided by the Knight Chair in Environmental Journalism at MSU.
Michigan State University, the nation's pioneer land grant university, is one of the nation's largest universities. On a 5,000-acre campus in East Lansing, Michigan, more than 4,000 faculty and staff members educate more than 41,000 students from more than 100 countries each year. The Knight Chair in Journalism is the nation's only endowed chair in environmental journalism.
The survey results are based upon questionnaires that were returned by 218 environmental journalists at newspapers, 75 at television stations, 74 at newsletters, 72 at magazines, 17 at radio stations and 40 others who worked as freelance journalists or for other types of media.
Surveys were sent to about 1,000 environmental journalists in the spring and summer of 1996. They were identified from listings of environmental journalists who are members of the Society of Environmental Journalists,environmental reporters identified by the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation and from the Editor and Publisher Yearbook.
For more information, contact Jim Detjen, Knight Chair in Environmental Journalism, 341 Communication Arts Building, School of Journalism, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1212. He can also be reached at 517-353-9479 or via Email at DETJEN@pilot.msu.edu .