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Show 27 became a major battleground for debate about the value of federal protection for land and if that federal protection was wanted or warranted. Examining the forces at play in these events and what role the media played gives a better picture of this aspect of Utah's environmental journalism history. Environmental Journalism History The Society of Environmental Journalists organized in 1989 with a goal lo "advance public understanding of environmental issues by improving the quality, accuracy, and visibility of environmental reporting." 69 At the 1998 national convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, historian John Palen presented a paper outlining the history and objectives of SEJ. The first line of his paper acknowledged that the growth of environmental journalism in the 1960s was not the birth of environmental journalism: "Environmentalism existed before Silent Spring, and media played important roles in pre-Silent Spring controversics." 70 However, as a transition into more recent history of environmental journalism, he implied that the history of environmental journalism before 1962 was written. That is not the case. 71 Socicty of Environmental Journalists, "SEJ's Vision and Mission," at h11p: //www.scj.org/aboutlindex.htm (accessed November 1, 2007). 69 70 John Palen, "Objectivity as Independence: Creating the Society of Environmen1.al Journalists, 19891997" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication) Baltimore, MD, August 1998. runher confusion about the origins of environmental journalism are perpetuated in the Fall 2000 issue of the SEJournul, the quarterly publication of the Society of Environmental Journal isl~ (vol. 12 no. 2). In that issue, the lead story is headlined, "The Birth of Environmental Journalism," which examines the rise in environmental news coverage during the 1960s and 1970s. In that same issue of SEJ011rnal, "Some Lessons Drawn from Lewis and Clark's Adventure," by Michael Mansur adds to the historical ambiguity of environmental journalism's origins by ca\Hng Meriwether Lewis and William Clark ''the nation's fin;t 'environmental journalists.'" 71 |
