The Construction of Environmental News

First published in 1999, this volume is drawn from a 1992-1996 study and seeks to explain the news process used to identify a newsworthy issue and its application to understanding the construction of environmental news. Drawing upon information retrieval and dissemination via journalists, newspapers, television and radio stations, Fiona Campbell examines the co-existence of two extreme, different professions for a common aim. She argues that environmental information is pluralistic and complex, holding information meanings inherent in it, and that environmental news is a version of interpreted environmental information.

Campbell discusses the idea that information changes as journalists gather, interpret and disseminate environmental information. A model is included, which describes the flow of environmental information in the media and shows that journalists retrieve information from a complex range of sources and repackage it in a simplified format. Campbell investigates the ways in which reporters routines their work procedures and how they apply the rules implicit in the news process. It examines the techniques used by journalists to evaluate news potential in environmental issues, the practices used to gather information and the methods employed to construct the news.