The Changing Landscape of Reporting Health and Environmental Risk Information

Abstract

Since the 1990s, news media has become central to informing the public understanding of healthand environmental risks. News media often ‘amplifies’ risks by drawing upon underlyingsociopolitical narratives to confer an additional sense of danger. A previous study has indicated that,since the 2000s, the British media attempted to improve the standard of science journalism withinrisk reporting. Through interviews with thirty members of the British national daily press, thepresent study investigates what changes to newswork have occurred which seem to have impactedthe quality of science reporting. Using time as a motif to guide analysis, the findings of this studysuggest that the shift to predominantly online reporting across the 2010s was associated with adecline in quality of science journalism. Interviewees reported that the technologies which liberatednews work from temporal demands in the 2000s have now become restrictive. New time pressureshave emerged which were blamed for undermining journalistic standards of information processing.Additionally, interviewees suggested that expanding public time horizons has produced newsaudiences who are seeking information on existential risks, which is being served by conspiracytheorists online. The findings of this study present a clear sociological challenge; how arecontemporary journalists to tackle misinformation within the public debate if they feel constrainedby time restraints to simply reproduce information?