Media and environmental change

Abstract

The mass media could play a critical role in shaping the public debate on environmental issues in the Philippines. But the environmental coverage in the print and broadcast media has been limited relative to the enormity of the nation's environmental problems. Remedying the media's neglect of the environment presents a difficult but interesting challenge to ecological advocates, both inside and outside the government, in their efforts to heighten public awareness of the social costs of environmental degradation. The underdeveloped state of media reporting on the environment has occurred for several reasons. First, environmental issues are seldom valued as “newsworthy” by a media establishment owned by commercial‐driven interests. Second, cutthroat media competition forces its practitioners to overindulge in delivering “sensational” news (e.g., reports on crime, corruption and movie personalities) to the public at the expense of information (e.g., environmental change) that lacks glitter but has far greate...