It’s a tough time to be a writer of late, the kind of writer who writes for magazines, blogs, and newspapers. Most people have skipped that part where they get a four year BA in journalism, they like writing, they are passionate about the environment, what more do they need? A familiarity with the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, for a start. One doesn’t need formal degrees to be a great journalist, what one does need is a strict self discipline, the desire to learn one’s craft, and a smidgen of integrity.
I’ve been interested in issues environmental for my entire adult life. It wasn’t until very recently that I began viewing anything written about issues green with a jaundiced eye. “Whoa” I think now, “where’s the fabrication and half truths in this one?”. More often than not it’s within the first few paragraphs.
I saw an article getting tossed around this weekend amongst science writers I follow on twitter. The writer, isn’t new to environmentalism, or to writing, but she was surprised to recently learn at a workshop sponsored by the Society for Professional Journalists that advocacy is something one must guard against. The writer is Christina Selby, and her article is How to Be (or Not to Be) an Advocacy Journalist. From the sounds of it she is in the early stages of developing a set of personal ethics about writing. Hurray for her, most never make it as far as she has.
In her article I saw the term “advocacy journalism”, I’d use the more familiar word “propaganda”.
Ms. Selby goes on to call objectivity a process, a personal followed code of good practices. ...I let my subscription to High Country News run out without renewal for a distinct lack of objective sources. Extremist orgs like the Center for Biological Diversity, or the NRDC, Earth Justice, etc are not good sources, especially when only their side of a story is told. Sloppy journalists simply take notation and regurgitate the pap they are fed in pre written “news releases”. Non political sources such as the National Academy of Sciences, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or even our various government agencies, at least attempt objectivity.
When reading truly good science writers I mistakenly assume they too are scientists. Information is presented in it’s entirety, not using emotion laden words and not suggesting actions to take. Such journalism is something I too often find lacking, even from Audubon, National Geo, Scientific American and our oldest most respected newspapers.
Last week one of the more famous conservation biologists who writes widely for many sources was caught not only inventing facts based on nothing which was completely at odds with widely established data, but of attempting to cover up a gentle correction from a scientist that is a specialist in the species. It showed not just misunderstanding but a conscious effort to lie. I wonder if anything will even come of it. If your cause is righteous is lying to advocate for your cause wrong? Yes, and maybe your cause isn’t righteous.