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 Human nature is to turn
and run from an oncoming fire or flood, but for environmental
journalists, their job is be on the scene, reporting not only on the
disaster, but to follow up on issues that could affect future public
policy.
"It's like watching a
slow motion train wreck," Mark Hammill of WQAD-TV said about covering a
flood.
Hammill has covered the
beginning, climax and aftermath of five 100-year floods along the
Mississippi River in the past eight years from his station in Western
Illinois.
A 100-year flood is a
flood that has one chance in 100 years of happening again.
Hammill said the
devastation from natural disasters, such as floods, lasts indefinitely
and is a never-ending story.
He joined moderator Scott
Miller of KING-TV in Seattle; Lee Wilkins, a professor at the University
of Missouri; and Steve Shumake, a reporter for the North Carolina News
Network in a how-to-workshop, "Covering Disasters Without Becoming One."
Miller said environmental
journalists, when covering disasters, need to find angles that attract
the public and inform them of information that often later shape public
policy decisions.
"I've never even heard
anybody explain what a 100-year flood is," Miller said, about journalists
lack of providing appropriate facts.
Shumake said that after
reporting on the initial disaster, environmental journalists need to
follow up on the effect and significance.
In the Midwest, he said,
hog lots are starting to attract coverage because the hog manure runs
into fresh water after a flood or hurricane. Storm water is heavily
polluted by human waste flooding reservoirs and causing algae to bloom,
he said.
Wilkins said she teaches
her environmental journalism students to be aware that often inaccurate
data are given on the chances of a disaster. She said predictions are
usually wrong and almost always low.
She said environmental
journalists need to ask what the numbers mean and what do they not know.
"I think it's hard for
the average reader to understand," Wilkins said, "We owe it to our
viewers and readers to tell them and let them know we have a chance of
100-year flood every year."
Wilkins said relevant
public policy issues are often overlooked because the worst of the
disaster is over, but the problems still need coverage.
"You have to remind
editors what the hook is," she said, in order to resume covering a story
that may have passed several months ago.
Environmental journalists
should not only help people with the current situation, but help society
evaluate what happened, Wilkins said.
She said media have
contributed to the dangers of environmental disasters.
"I am convinced the media
have become a visual cliche," she said, of repeated pictures during
floods of children playing in flood water or of cars trapped in a flood.
Wilkins said journalists
need to first think about the long-term visual impact repeated images
will have on the public when associated with disaster situations.
She said her students
admitted finding it difficult to come up with pictures having different
angles than the ones they were so used to seeing.
"Our behavior needs to
change," she said.
Pictures of dangerous
situations need to be accompanied by a warning and should have visual
continuity and not be used just to fill air time, Wilkins said.
The SEJ convention was
held Oct. 2-5 at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
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