Via Online Journalism Review. 4 pages., Case examples include a periodical that investigated unregistered chemicals and found widespread use throughout Japan, even on "organic" farms. Started an online "Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Research Lab" as a virtual think tank to tackle the problem in a way that included the voices of everyday Japanese citizens. "The idea of connecting producers and consumers through civic journalism has become a standard approach to agriculture coverage in the Tohoku farming region."
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 148 Document Number: C23814
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Via Poynteronline. 3 pages, Author argues that "journalism on a smaller scale provides a bigger opportunity to connect with (and answer to) readers and viewers." Cites an experience in which a reporter at a small daily newspaper on the coast of rural North Carolina told her readers that the water was polluted with cancer-causing chemicals and that city leaders had known about the pollutants for many years without doing anything. She received a Pulitzer Gold Medal for Meritorious Public Service, but a hostile reception, locally, by people upset by the uproar she had caused in the community.
Authors follow the notion that ignorance is not simply the absence of knowledge, but rather has its own configurations. They use examples to illustrate how interest groups and news media "appropriate and emphasize those ignorance claims that advance and protect their own particular concerns." Examples include Alar pesticide and tobacco.
International: Metcalfe Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting, University of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography, Office of Marine Programs, Narragansett, RI.
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Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 167 Document Number: C27893
Online via UI electronic subscription., This article reports on a study of the relative weight of attention given by the New York Times newspaper to alarming or reassuring messages about pesticides in the immediate aftermath of Silent Spring. Three models of media coverage are examined: conflict theory, sensationalism, and problem frame. Analysis revealed a complicated pattern of coverage which first highlighted, then downplayed, risk.