Climate Change, Illegitimate News and the Shrinking News Hole

12/10

Climate Change, Illegitimate News and the Shrinking News Hole

Preview

        In this paper I will use the general topic of climate change to discuss the issues of poor news and the relationship it has with the news hole and the idea or term, “shrinking news hole”.  I will not enter into the discussion of the truth behind climate change too in-depth, but instead focus on the news that is shared about it as well as with any global problem.  Some of the questions I hope to answer are, Why do these problems of poor news and the shrinking of the news hole exist?, Why do these problems persist?, and What can we do to stop the spreading of illegitimate news?  

Introduction

        With all these sources of news we have today there is lots of controversy over plenty of things that are shared throughout media.  When relating that to global environmental problems the degree of controversy rises due to it being such an important and widespread thing, it’s global…  What I believe to be the number one cause of controversial and illegitimate news is the shrinking news hole that Cox brings up in chapter six, “News Media and Environmental Journalism”, of our Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere book.  The shrinking news hole, similar to global environmental issues,  is progressively getting worse, leading to increasingly worse news across all mediums of news.  Yes, I do believe climate change to be real, studying it closely like anything will show the truth, but it’s not due to people’s stupidity that people don’t believe it, it’s a problem with what is being presented to us in the news.  With the problem of shrinking news hole, more and more bad news is being shared.

Cause and Effect

        What the news hole is, as defined by Cox, is “the amount of space that is available in a newspaper or TV news story relative to other demands for the same space” (Cox 144).  There are many causes of the news hole and it’s shrinkage, and many more negative effects.  Looking at the causes there are four main reasons.  First are two similar ones, TV shows in general, and advertisements that all work for the same space in the news hole.  With more and more TV shows being created, less space is available for news to be given to us.  Following that, with more TV shows being created and opportunities for publicity, advertisements are taking over networks for that same space on the news hole.  When watching a show or news, usually a one to two ratio of advertisements to actual news or TV show is present.  This meaning, if you have a thirty minute segment, there will be twenty minutes of content, and ten minutes of ridiculous, space taking, advertisements.  

        Another related problem is too much news; yes there can be too much.   This can be in the form of too many news stations and too much news to cover.  If there are too many news stations, which can be good and bad, a topic might spread from station to station, being exaggerated or expanded on differently with misinformed knowledge filling the reports.  With too much news, the possibility of something of actual importance might be covered up by something useless.  Looking at the war in Libya and it being covered up by Miley Cyrus at the VMAs this past August you see a small, but perfect example of this.  The incidents of the VMA were somehow much more important than the war in Libya, important enough to take over the spreading of news about the war.  The final, different, cause of problems with the news hole is related to cost.  Looking at the article The Shrinking Foreign Newshole of the New York Times, it came to the idea that fit perfectly with the issues that exist with illegitimate news and the lack of news on the war and Libya, “It is far easier and, above all, cheaper to use wire stories than to employ journalist with the necessary specialized backgrounds to staff foreign bureaus” (Rife, 75).  For the news stations it was easier to take the Miley Cyrus VMA video and discuss it rather than pay someone with the correct qualifications to provide direct coverage of the war in Libya.

        Because of these various issues either problems in content or cost that cause the news hole to shrink, you get a variety of other problems that arise.  From the limited amount of space and publicity available you have a rise in generally poor news, news that is misinformed due to misinformed anchors, limited in it’s content, and extremely over dramatized and exaggerated.  This news exist in all mediums, but where it is most common, with the expansion of news sharing going to other mediums, is on the internet.  With the ability for anyone to post news online, although there are notable forms of media online such as Fox and CNN, anything can be shared through it’s vast world.  In How Do Newspaper Journalists Use the Internet in News Gathering?, there was a study done on the statistics of gather news by journalist.

        “The results of this descriptive study of professional journalists (N = 166) indicate that         an overwhelming majority (67%) use Web sites for work purposes but far fewer (22%)         said they verify Web information with another source before using it. Also, 36% of         reporters said they conduct interviews via e-mail and 68% said they use e-mail press         releases for story ideas.”

        This kind of information is the main problem, cause and effect, of the shrinking news hole.  With news needed by media sources, they’ll quickly go out and find something they believe to be interesting and share that with little background checking on where they got that information being done.  As you mentioned during another presentation on climate change, “Oh gee, it’s a graph! It must be true” (Thatcher).  This is exactly what happens, it sounds stupid and childish, but it is extremely true in many situations.  People find anything and everything to use to get publicity.      

        Another very extreme effect of the shrinking news hole is the possibility of no coverage of a possibly extreme global issue, what can be looked at as global warming/climate change.  With all the other problems out there in the world, TV shows, advertisements and various incidents environmental or not, something can just be “dusted under the rug”.  Like the topic of climate change, it’s gotten to the point where it is hardly ever mentioned, if at all.  If something as big as climate change can get no coverage, it’s just as likely that something of a smaller degree about the environment or equally as big can get no coverage.  Looking at the BP oil spill is a great example.  No coverage doesn’t have to come on purpose, and will often just come indirectly because of the shrinking news hole, but it can come from a term called gatekeeping.  Gatekeeping is “The decision of editors and media managers to cover or not cover certain environmental stories” (Cox  158).  People have this idea that “news arrives in a ready-made and unproblematic even story at the media “gate”, where it is either admitted or excluded” (Lee 37).  But what often happens is that news is distorted, covered up or not explained and the news station and it’s workers have to fact check and research the topic before being able to provide legitimate, useful material.  Problems arise with big corporations, i.e. BP, trying to cover up negative news that would harshly affect their company.  So, it’s not always easy to provide great news to an audience.          From all of these problems you get examples of poor news or limited news from sites such as Facebook and Google and the social groups that are created within them, and co2science.org a climate denier website that disguises itself as real science with the use of believable but wrong information.