The Rising Tide for Environmental Reporting

Eight days after Hurricane Katrina decimated the Gulf Coast, CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" included in its coverage of the storm's aftermath a report on toxic water and another piece on global warming. The story on the toxic soup created by the New Orleans floodwaters raised issues about the environmental impact of the cleanup as the dirty water is drained into Lake Pontchartrain. The global warming story explained the complicated cycles of increased and decreased hurricane activity and their relationship with rising temperatures in the oceans. These types of pieces-taking a long-range look at environmental issues-were less likely to generate attention in newsrooms in a pre-Katrina world. The destruction caused by Katrina may have created a defining era for environmental journalism. Coverage of environmental topics has been sparse on television over the past few years. Now viewers appear more keenly invested in such issues because Katrina isn't just the story of the worst natural disaster to hit the United States, it's also a story that has brought into sharp focus the issues of man's impact on the environment. In fact, the ongoing cleanup and the assessment of the impact of Katrina are likely to usher in a new wave of environmental reporting on TV in the next few months. What is unknown is whether that attention will translate into a long-term, consistent focus.
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Daisy Whitney]
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