Comparison of journalistic coverage for environmental accidents by newspapers published in Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro / Comparação da cobertura jornalística de acidentes ambientais por veículos impressos de Minas Gerais e Rio de Janeiro

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

The amount of environmental news that gets into print usually increases when environmental accidents occur. Nevertheless, the value attributed to the facts destined to be transformed into news can vary from one communication medium to another. One of the principal criteria affecting which events will be reported is proximity. This closeness factor can be considered in terms of both physical space and readership identity. To investigate possible differences between approaches to newsworthy topics, this study analyzed the attention given by four newspapers in relation to three similar environmental accidents that occurred within the present decade. All three resulted from structural failures of residual waste containment dams. The accidents occurred at three different locations in Minas Gerais State: an iron ore mine site operated by Mineração Rio Verde Company (Municipality of Nova Lima, 22 June 2001); a pulp and paper industrial site operated by Indústria Cataguazes de Papel Company (Municipality of Cataguases, 29 March 2003); and a bauxite mine site operated by Mineração Rio Pomba Company (Municipality of Miraí, 10 January 2007). While all three of these incidents occurred in Minas Gerais, the latter two also caused serious repercussions in the neighboring State of Rio de Janeiro. With both these similarities and differences in mind, two newspapers based in Minas Gerais (Estado de Minas and Hoje em Dia) were chosen for analysis and two from Rio de Janeiro State (O Globo and Jornal do Brasil). The studied focused on attention given to each event as manifest quantitatively by the number of editions and articles published and qualitatively by the type of coverage. The chronological time-frame chosen was one year of coverage after each accident. All the articles published in that period were analyzed. Study results indicate that proximity, especially geographic in relation to the events, affected the newspapers attention. The Mineração Rio Verde event, with repercussions only in Minas Gerais, resulted in few articles being published by the two Rio de Janeiro newspapers (five in O Globo and two in Jornal do Brasil). On the other hand, the other two accidents with repercussions in Rio de Janeiro were widely reported by these two journals. In terms of total number of articles for all four journals, the Minas Gerais newspapers published more articles about the Mineração Rio Verde event and its repercussions (100 articles in Estado de Minas and 47 in Hoje em Dia). Because of its larger magnitude, the Indústria Cataguazes de Papel accident resulted in largest total of articles (159) than the Mineração Rio Pomba event (89) for all the newspapers studied. In summary, it is concluded that the location of an environmental event affects its newsworthiness in the eyes of the press. The Minas Gerais newspapers maintained coverage for a longer period of time. But there was greater discrepancy in the number of articles they published from month to month compared to the Rio de Janeiro newspapers. Content analysis showed that the categories news and simple contextualization predominated in all four newspapers. Public domain was the most used news source in detriment to sources civil society, private sector, NGO and technicians/scientists.

ASSUNTO(S)

environmental journalism impacto ambiental acidente industrial industrial accident conservacao da natureza environmental impact jornalismo ambiental

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