Science Journalism :: Article :: BBC environment correspondent sounding alarm bells over online coverage

BBC environment correspondent sounding alarm bells over online coverage
By Sarah Ripplinger
November 20, 2007

The future of online science journalism is full of potholes and speed bumps, according to BBC News online environment correspondent Richard Black. The sheer complexity of issues such as global warming, positive feedback loops and species extinction makes it difficult to give readers all the information they need in short, snappy sentences, Black told audience members during his presentation of News on the Net: A Green Future at the UBC School of Journalism.

“I think the pessimist in me realizes how much life as a journalist has become busier and more fraught and more tense,” Black said during an interview after his presentation. “The commercial tensions are there and newsrooms are shedding people and so on, just as the subject [of the environment] is becoming more complex.”

Black says he worries that if online news focuses too much on appealing to advertisers to raise funds, important topics will be left to the wayside in exchange for more sensational content.

Online news outlets are especially susceptible to this because they often have smaller staffs and a fast-paced, work-intensive environment where reporters are expected to post as much content online as they can in the shortest possible timeframe. This can mean sacrificing fact checking and the inclusion of background information in a news piece for hurried summations and cursory analysis.

That much can be said about reports on global warming that, for a long time, failed to identify the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change.

Working for the BBC website, Black said, has been both frustrating and liberating. Quick turnaround times for stories can make it difficult to delve into topics as much as he would like. On the plus side, the online news environment allows reporters like Black to write as many articles as they want.

“You can publish 500 stories a day if you want to,” he said.

Online news has the advantage of allowing reporters and support staff to post additional features such as photo galleries, interactive elements, published reports and videos alongside news articles.

Black says he has also enjoyed a lot of editorial freedom at the BBC News website because of the way funding is distributed throughout the organization.

Publicly-funded monies were evenly distributed throughout individual news departments, meaning the science and environment group had some control over their finances, which they could then use to improve the quality of their reports. Black uses the example of having a small travel allowance to cover important stories, such as ocean fisheries, happening abroad.

Online journalists used to work fairly autonomously, choosing the stories they knew were interesting. These stories might never have made it past an editor, Black said “because they wouldn’t know what you were talking about,” but it meant that a lot more topics about the environment were getting out to readers.

Now advertisements are being added to the previously publicly funded BBC News online and Black worries that his working life will change.

“If making money becomes your priority, then why on earth would you do stories on developmental economics or poverty in Africa? People will be looking for stories that bring in advertisers and so when cuts have to be made, and there will be more cuts no doubt about it, there must be a temptation to say lets target the bits that don’t get so many hits then.”

Black worries that the corporate interests being pushed by advertisers will have a negative impact on the quality of reports on scientific issues and environmental debates.

This comes at a time when growing tensions within the web-based news industry were already posing a threat to the quality of journalism on the Internet.

Editors are demanding more than ever of their news-staff, making add-ons like video, sound and other visual elements a double-edged sword for reporters.

“All the time that you have doing this stuff is time you cannot be spending researching stories and finding news stories,” Black said.

The BBC News relies on its reputation for providing the most current and in-depth reports on science and environmental stories. But these stories are increasingly in competition with the news postings from non-governmental organization and online blogs that often have more resources, time and staff to put towards producing them.

To attract readers to its web pages, the mainstream media has to distinguish itself from interest groups by presenting balanced and well-researched reports.

“Trust and reliability is probably our biggest card,” Black said.

And knowing the competition can be a valuable resource in and of itself.

Black says he often visits the websites of credible NGOs and science organizations and sifts through some of the more prominent blogs for information and news tips.

As a result, the BBC news has seen a continued rise in the number of hits for their online environmental coverage.

A BBC online environmental story gets on average 20,000-200,000 views every 24 hours, according to Black.

This comes despite the fact that, as Black admits, their coverage of the environment can be so detailed that it “borders on boring.”

There is, however, a trade-off to producing scientifically accurate and well-researched reports on the environment. That trade-off is time.

Journalists have to spend a lot of time researching and talking to experts in the field to gain a firm grasp of the subject matter. Without this mastery of the literature, journalists risk producing reports that include inaccurate information or that unwittingly mislead the public into believing something that is simply not true.

Black says it’s unlikely that the problems of work overload, shrinking budgets and growing competition to online environmental reports will be solved any time soon. The litmus test will be whether or not they can maintain the confidence of their audience.