Loud voices get media; unfortunately, the water crisis speaks in whispers. It also doesn't help that water issues are currently not as politically hip, socially trendy or marketable as other environmental topics.
Awareness is, as Awareness does
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) created an international observance called World Water Day. That was 16 years ago, yet most Americans are unaware of this annual March initiative to promote water crisis awareness.
World Water Day is not listed on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) website but World Water Monitoring Day is. The EPA started this campaign in 2003 "to broaden environmental awareness" in partnership with America's Clean Water Foundation and the International Water Association. (It is also probably safe to say that most Americans have never heard of World Water Monitoring Day either.) Conversely, Earth Day has several dedicated portals on the government and EPA websites.
In 2006,The EPA created Water Sense, a water efficiency program launched to "raise awareness about the importance of water efficiency, ensure the performance of water-efficient products and provide good consumer information." Their logo is used on labels of products and services that "perform at least 20 percent more efficiently than their less efficient counterparts." Water Sense is also sponsoring Fix a Leak Week, to "remind Americans to check their plumbing fixtures and irrigation systems for leaks", March 16-20.
Who knew...any of this stuff?
If isn't green, it won't be seen
A Google search on "water crisis" will return over 28 million hits; "green" kicks out more than 800 million. Synonymous to the environment, green is more fashionable, marketable and bankable.
Reusable grocery totes, hybrid cars, organics, clean products, and a host of other goods and services are marketed with environmental initiatives in mind. Green PR is big business; press releases routinely flood the media, Earth Day pitches return annually, but promos on the water crisis are rarely seen. Wal Mart even added "Personal Sustainability Projects" to their internal health and wellness programs to encourage employees to recycle and use "environmentally friendly products in their homes".
The corporate love affair with green marketing isn't limited to manufacturing and retail giants either. When a major broadcast network decided to go green in 2007, eco-creative went into overdrive. Green story lines were written into prime time scripts, local news stations worked green campaigns and a barrage of peacock PSAs hit the national airwaves. NBC still leaves no green-promotable stone unturned recently evidenced in a NY Post report on the new Late Night "entirely" eco-friendly studio.
Challenges and changing faces
One of the biggest challenges for the media is working with environmental verbiage. According to "The Business Benefits of Going Green" in Business Week, a lack of unilateral understanding for commonly used terms such as "green" and "eco-friendly" plague the media. When business perspectives hone in on trends which directly mirror active industry such as bio fuels and solar energy, interpretations can be further convoluted by corporate jargon.
Topics covered by the public news media also tend to trend. In late February, Time published a "special report" on the environment: Green is the New Red, White and Blue. Solar power, global warming, co2 and eco-innovators such as Petroalgae, who is developing algae for use in bio fuels, were included in the report. There was no mention about the water crisis but news of a Canadian company trying to create power through ocean waves was also featured.
Last March, Time did run "World Water Crisis", a pictorial overview gleaned from "Blue Planet:The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World", published by the Blue Planet Run Foundation. The book tracks the "race" to provide safe drinking water to the one billion people in the world who don't have it. You can download a free copy on Amazon.
Blue Planet's worldwide objectives may also provide further insight as to why the American media does not follow the water crisis more closely. International news absent of war, politics and weather disasters are not generally top priority. Domestic issues typically drive water crisis coverage, as recently demonstrated by Governor Schwarzenegger's "emergency call" on California's water shortage.
Declining manpower can also be attributed to the lack of assigned coverage. In, "Is the Press Misreporting the Environment Story", Time's Bryan Walsh reports that media ownership isn't willing to support the staff necessary for good environmental coverage noting that, "Time's corporate cousin CNN has eliminated its entire full-time science section".
Economical scale backs are common place today, and the media industry is no different. However, some resources suggest the decrease in environmental coverage has been an ongoing one. Last year, Eco Tech Daily (ETD) reported a decline in science and environment coverage by the Wall Street Journal and NY Times citing a 2007 tracking study in "How the Media Abandoned the Environment."
ETD further suggested that because of the changes within the media industry itself (i.e. reader/viewer behaviors and declining revenue streams) that a "transformation of news from information to entertainment" has occurred.
It is no secret that print, broadcast and web media are all scrambling to maintain sustenance in the marketplace; Ad Age and Media Post generate numerous copy on the subject daily. Working partnerships that exist between corporate America, entertainment media and news, further complicate the situation.
Going forward, environmental causes with high profilers such as former Vice President, Al Gore attached to them have the best shot at grabbing the media spotlight. It is highly unlikely media coverage of the water crisis will improve without celebrity, corporate and/or political backing in kind. Lower profile platforms such as the The World Water Council and Science Daily could ultimately become the prime outlets for water crisis news.