Abstract:
This article reports on a preliminary scan of six English-language newspapers
in Southeast Asia, with a side comparison to a leading Australian
newspaper, regarding their coverage of environmental sustainability issues
over a two month period in 2005. It identifies the ownership and key
politico-economic issues for each masthead, and does a detailed quantitative
analysis of their subject matter and use of sources, followed by two
case studies of complex, multisourced stories critical of corporate or government
activities. The analysis draws on field theory, and canvasses debates
about the power relations among journalists and sources. It concludes
that there is a common set of journalistic practices across the sample
regardless of national and political differences, but considerable diversity
of approaches within that commonality. Patterns of ownership,
particularly state vs non-state offer little general explanatory power for
this diversity. Protection of the environment had 'motherhood status' in
the reporting, but precisely because of this status no assumptions can be
made about the quality of the coverage.
