Culture

FOCUS: Regulating Chemicals

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The link between human health and our environment may be obvious, but the devil is in the details. In January, new or forthcoming reports about common industrial chemicals provoked the usual disputes between public health activists and the business community over the need for regulation. -The solvent trichloroethylene has been linked with lymphoma and other diseases. It was dumped “indiscriminately” in the past, and a doctor with Boston University called the EPA “cowardly” for not controlling the substance. If a cancer link is established, the environmental cleanup costs — including groundwater — could run to the billions of dollars.

Culture

Readers Speak: The Power of a Picture Survey Results

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This Readers Speak survey was sponsored by the Associated Press Managing Editors National Credibility Roundtables Project through its Reader Interactive initiative. A total of 29 news organizations sent email to about 11,000 regular readers, and 2,461 responses were received from 45 states and the District of Columbia. Editors involved with APME invited their staffs to answer the same questions, gathering 419 responses from 36 states and the District of Columbia. The results are not scientific; readers who responded are likely to be among the more interactive that newspapers have. They were polled because they had given their email address to their local newspaper, and comments were taken only online.

Culture

Readers Speak: The Power of a Picture / Graphic images can shock and inform

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By Ryan Pitts, Associated Press Managing Editors/Spokane Spokesman-Review
Newspaper readers and journalists agree that a complete news report can’t ignore the disturbing sides of life, but readers are generally more conservative about when — and where — graphic photographs should be published. Responding to an online survey, both groups said that challenging images sometimes describe reality in a way that words can’t. Although few thought the public should be shielded from ugly truths, they all ran into similar concerns when deciding whether specific pictures should run. Readers and journalists alike struggled to balance compassion and family privacy with a broader need for information. They saw value in unflinching descriptions of wartime brutality, but no one wanted to become a tool for terrorist propaganda.

Democracy

FOCUS: Beyond the Tsunami — Aceh’s Turmoil

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Before the tsunami, the rebellious Indonesian province of Aceh was hardly a household name — and even after the world’s TV, radio and newspaper reporters descended on the region, the bulk of their coverage focused on the horrors of the giant wave. But Aceh has a rich and troubled history, endowed with extraordinary natural resources, and saddled with a legacy of colonialist violence that is still playing out today. Historical Turmoil
Separatist Origins
Brittle Peace
Feared Militia
The Military: Violence, Corruption
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Historical Turmoil | top
A paradise island by any measure, Sumatra — and its northernmost Aceh province in particular — has nevertheless suffered greatly from catastrophes both natural and human in origin. Of the former class of disaster, the most notable prior to the 2004 Christmas tsunami was the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, a volcanic island in between Java and Sumatra. Tsunamis from the explosion rose 100 feet high, claimed more than 35,000 lives, destroyed 165 coastal villages, and heaved 600-ton blocks of coral onto the shore.

Democracy

UPDATE: Election 2004

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The candidates have been sworn in, but legal battles remain in the bedraggled aftermath of Election 2004. In Washington state, Republicans are in court to force consideration of flawed ballots, and are pushing for a possible revote, even after Democrat Christine Gregoire made her inaugural speech. A host of bills are on tap in the state to prevent a re-run of similar problems next Election Day. But even reform boosters admit that “human and administrative error” will remain an issue. In San Diego, the battle is characterized as “voter intent against ballot rules.”

Featured

News You Might Have Missed

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QUOTED: “[S]tudents often do not even have notebooks and they arrive without having eaten. They talk about a school snack — it consists of single cookie.” –Sergio Rivera, leader of a teachers’ union in Honduras, on the aftermath of a massive strike last summer (story #07, below).  – – – – – – – – – –
TOP STORIES
[o1] “Mysterious jet tied to torture flights”
[o2] “Brown’s African crusade begins in continent’s biggest slum”
[o3] “New Zealand confirms supplying Agent Orange in Vietnam War”
NATION
[o4] “Tort reform begins in court”
[o5] “Hybrid drivers told no carpool lane yet”
[o6] “Drug firms lagging on openness”
WORLD
[o7] “Futile strike?” [o8] “Endangered bananas”
[o9] “A factory owner rallies his workers — and reopens doors in Sri Lanka”
IRAQ: THE PEOPLE
[10] “Displaced Kirkuk Kurds demand vote”
[11] “In Iraq, a winter of discontent”
IRAQ: THE WAR
[12] “F-16 mistakenly bombs house south of Mosul”
[13] “U.S. soldiers blamed for destruction in Fallujah”
[14] “Deploying soldiers taught how to talk to reporters”
ENVIRONMENT
[15] “Poachers bleaching Kashmiri trout to death”
[16] “Will toxic sludge have a silver lining?”

Science

FOCUS: Tsunami Ecology

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Research by Allison Bloch, Newsdesk.org Intern, and Michael Stoll, Guest Editor 
In response to the question of why stories about nature don’t usually become front-page news in the mainstream media, Frank Allen, a veteran journalist who had written for The Wall Street Journal once said, “Environmental stories don’t break, they ooze.” So it follows that when news does break, it has nothing to do with the environment. Or does it? The day after Christmas, several environmental stories were spun out of a major event — a tsunami that swept the shores of 12 Asian countries and killed as many as 150,000 people. Most readers, naturally, assumed it was a human tragedy unrelated to the ecology.

Featured

News You Might Have Missed

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Important but underreported news from around the world —
and your own backyard
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QUOTED: “It’s discouraging to me that the Department of Defense uses the terrorist attacks as a cloak to excuse themselves from environmental laws.” –Environmentalist Kyla Bennett, on DOD attempts to alter environmental laws on land it controls (Story #o3, below).  – – – – – – – – – –
TOP STORIES
[o1] “Govt. resorts to banned DDT to fight malaria”
[o2] “Kurds petition U.N. for independence from Iraq”
[o3] “Pentagon is pressing to bypass environmental laws for war        games and arms testing”
NATION
[o4] “CIA’s private jet an open secret in terror war”
[o5] “Satan worshiper, witch testing religious liberty”
[o6] “Give up the suburb? Yes.

Democracy

FOCUS: Election Reform

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Research by Allison Bloch, Newsdesk.org Intern 
The controversies of the 2000 presidential election provoked heated debate and new legislation intended to prevent similar problems in the future. In 2004, with electoral irregularities only growing more widespread, calls for reform have renewed appeal. Campaign finance, the electoral college and disenfranchisement are just a few of the issues under debate. Newsdesk.org will be following this issue throughout 2005. Consider this short survey just the tip of the iceberg.