While being back at home over fall break, I had a lot of time to do the things I love. Spending time with my friends and family, enjoying the vivacity of Chicago, and catching up on my sleep.
Over this break, I found that I once again had time to watch TV. Over a few days I started to notice something about the TV, more specifically, about the news. I noticed how the vast majority of reports did not actually seem like news to me.
The main stories in the news often consisted of petty political jabs by the presidential candidates, shootings and other tragic events, and of course, weather and sports. I did not know whether there was truly no more pressing news reports out there, or if other stories were simply pruned out of the broadcast.
To me, the news seemed to be this consistent template of events with only names and minor details changing from day to day. I could not help but wonder why there was this incredible lack of diversity, and why other stories were not included in the news.
Through other sources, I was able to find reports of major events that were taking place in our world. I found that, in recent years, El Niño and climate change are putting the Great Barrier Reef—the world’s largest living structure, and the only one visible from space—in serious trouble. In fact, the most severe coral bleaching event on record decimated nearly 93 percent of the reef.
I found myself utterly stunned by this reporting, and furthermore, I could not conceive why larger news outlets were not reporting on the recent coral bleachings. The Great Barrier Reef is under extreme stress which is crushing the life that it supports. This has profound implications for local and global ecosystems, as well as significant effects on the already stressed human food chain. To me, these facts seemed far more important and captivating than the quarrels of the presidential race; however, this story, and others like it, were absent from my news broadcast.
This left me with one main question: where is sustainability in the news? With our growing population and increasing social, economic, and environmental stresses, it is paramount to our societies that we understand the importance of living sustainable lives. This has brought me to the opinion that media companies and reporting organizations alike, should commit to adequate reporting on issues of sustainability and environmental instability.
It’s my hope that as stories like this one become woven into the reporting framework of modern news agencies, it will bring attention to our growing environmental threats, and educate the public on the severe implications of American unsustainability.
I may be alone in experiencing discontent with the current state of the media’s reporting; however, I do believe that the breadth of the topics covered by a news source should be representative of all of the major issues impacting the world.