Johannesburg Summit: Journalism's Bad Example

Journalists are not covering the crisis of the world's model of civilization and seem to be more concerned with spectacle, warns Washington Novaes. "The world is in a big mess," the renowned Brazilian reporter said in a conversation with Tierramérica.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Humanity is in a big mess of unsustainability in the economic, environmental, social and political spheres, but journalism, preoccupied by spectacle and by winning larger audiences, is not covering this "crisis of the civilization model," renowned Brazilian journalist Washington Novaes said in an exclusive Tierramérica interview.

Honored with awards inside and outside his country, for more than three decades Novaes has been reporting on environment and development issues. His latest book, "A Década do Impasse – Da Rio-92 à Rio+10" (The Decade of Impasse: From Rio 92 to Rio+10), is a collection of articles about the 1992 World Summit on the Environment in Rio de Janeiro and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, exposing the panorama of challenges and unkept promises.

Novaes has written a dozen books and is a successful television documentarist. His TV series "Xingú" won international awards and in 1990 he received the King of Spain Prize for journalism for his series of articles "Amazonia and the Future of Humanity".

Originally from Sao Paulo, he now lives in Goiania, capital of the central state of Goias, far from the pollution and congestion of Brazil's industrial center, though he must make the trip to the mega-city nearly every week for work.

He is currently the programming director of the public channel TV Cultura of Sao Paulo and is a regular columnist for O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper.

Q: Is today's news coverage of environmental issues satisfactory, according to your standards?
A: No, because the predominant model in journalism looks for the spectacle, news that easily generates emotions and an audience. That is why reporters focus on crises, tragedies like oil spills and the forest burning in the Amazon, which take place during one part of the year. After that, the issue disappears. The policies that led to the situation or which could promote solutions are not discussed. I say this based on the Brazilian press, which is what I am familiar with.

Q: Is the problem that the environment isn't being taken seriously?
A: The environment is not at the center of the debate and decision-making like it should be, in neither communications nor politics. If the environmental question were taken seriously, it would threaten everyone: the government would have to alter its policies, the companies would have to incorporate environmental costs, the reporters would be obligated to modify their view of the world and the way they do journalism, and the general population would be called upon to change its habits.

Q: Should the media step up its denunciations of environmental problems?
A: Not only that, it should make a global assessment of the situation. The Johannesburg Summit, for example, made it clear that it is not just a matter of preserving nature, but also of respecting limits that were or are being surpassed, manifest in climate change, desertification, and water shortages. Not only do we lack institutions and regulations, it is difficult to advance in the negotiations through the United Nations system, seeking consensus among 191 countries with conflicting interests.

Q: Was the Johannesburg Summit an example of a deficient communications media?
A: Yes. A great deal was said about the failure of the Summit, without questioning the consequences, the reasons, and the world situation. In Johannesburg there was a large gap between the discourses, recognizing the world's environmental and social disasters, and the concrete measures to be taken.

Q: What is the world's leading environmental problem?
A: The models of consumption and non-sustainable production, which affect everything, including income distribution. The world is in a big mess, with economic, environmental, social and political unsustainability, with the recession in the wealthy countries and the financial markets dominating everything, with the unfair division of consumption and income. There are dramatic problems in governance, a political slowness that contradicts the urgency of reality, and it is threatening democracy. We are faced with a crisis of the model of civilization.

Q: In this context, what role do the communications media serve?
A: They open the doors for society's awareness and participation, given that there will not be imposed, but rather agreed solutions. But for now the media are not responding to the needs of generating knowledge that would allow society to participate in these decisions.

* Mario Osava is an IPS correspondent.