Journalists, do you know where your audience's head is at?

I read an article a few weeks ago about the Waxman-Markey bill that’s currently making its way through the legislature. It passed the House of Representatives at the end of June and is now working its way through the Senate. If you recall, this is the bill that is supposed to address global warming by tackling the issue of the exorbitant amount of greenhouse gases we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere as we go about generating electricity. This is one of the 3 big contributors to global warming, right? Along with:

o Our fossil fuel-based agricultural and industrial practices
o Our gasoline production methods (ie; oil refineries) and use of gas for transportation

Well, the article was decent. It laid out the arguments for why it’s a bad bill, a few arguments for why its basic configuration may be alright, etc. But it got me thinking about how legislative issues get communicated to us hoi polloi here outside the Washington Beltway.

You see, with the absence of any real civics education in our schools and the breaking apart of civics-minded community groups over the last 40 years or so, most Americans don’t have a very detailed grasp on how the legislative process currently works, how it’s supposed to work, how a law gets enforced (pretty important – didja see anyone actually enforce the FISA law? The Geneva Conventions law against torture?), and how all these details can make the legislation either something effective or something essentially useless. I think it would be a good idea for journalists to take this reality into consideration when they write pieces on legislative issues.

Using the Waxman-Markey bill as an example let me suggest covering at least a few key questions when communicating about these types of issues (admittedly, not all in the same news report). A lot of it is about context:

That is:

1. What kind of environment is the whole legislative process happening in?

In this case, the bill is being put together in an environment characterized by the belief (or stated belief, at least) of a significant amount of Republican legislators that human-caused global warming is essentially a hoax, but near unanimous agreement in the scientific community (and among a certain number of Democratic legislators) that global warming is real and in the process of kicking the shit out of the planet. It’s also being put together in an environment where big electricity producers (the coal industry, primarily) are using their vast financial resources to lobby the public and legislators (Democrat and Republican alike) on how the bill should be configured AND to exert pressure (particularly on those legislators who sit on the committee that debates and revises the bill before it gets voted on) and gain influence over how the bill is written by contributing to expensive reelection campaigns.

There are also other groups, less powerful than electricity generators certainly, but significant in numbers who are lobbying legislators to craft the legislation a certain way. These include environmental advocacy organizations, scientists, and citizens groups of various stripes.

It’s important for people to understand the atmosphere in which these bills are being created so they can separate the lobbying and spin coming out of various quarters from the actual goals of the legislation itself. The real mechanics of government need to be understood (‘cause the devil is always in the details) and a little context helps people get familiar with how this bureaucratic contraption actually operates in the messy reality of an imperfect world inhabited by imperfect people getting things done, somewhat collectively, in a deeply imperfect way. (that being democracy, or at least some ugly bastardization thereof) so, at the very least, you can accustom people to thinking a little critically as they go about deciding what they think and what they want to do. Okay, next question is a simple one.

2. What are the legislation’s stated goals?

To, by 2020, get the level of carbon the U.S. pumps into the atmosphere to be 17% below the amount of carbon we were dishing out in 2005. And to get us 83% below those 2005 levels by 2050. So, you can see the short-term goals of the legislation aren’t all that aggressive, while the long-term goals appear pretty serious. Alright, the next question is a little more thorny.

3. How much of a difference does it make whether the goals are achieved? Are the goals meaningful?

Well, that depends on who you talk to. Many environmental scientists believe that for any attempt at regulating carbon emissions to make a difference on global warming (and remember, that’s the overarching goal, right? To not have global warming kicking the shit out of the whole planet), we’ve got to get our carbon emissions to be at least 25% lower than what they were in 1990. Gotta tell ya. We were emitting a lot less carbon in 1990 than we were in 2005, so that’s a pretty hardcore stat. Now this doesn’t mean the goals of the legislation are not meaningful. Once a piece of legislation goes into effect, it’s not uncommon to see it revisited and changed over time. So, given that, you might want to ask some other questions.

For instance, how are things likely to be if we do nothing and pass no legislation at all? And how are things likely to be if we get emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020? A lot better? A little better, but still bad? The same as if we did nothing? I’m not going to go and answer every one of these questions. There’s healthy debate around all of them. But see how things like

a) Getting the context of what’s going on
b) Learning what the goals are of the whole thing
c) Figuring out whether or not those goals are worth anything
d) Finding out what methods they’re proposing we use to achieve the goals
e) Projecting how effective these methods are likely to be
e) Understanding how they’ll make sure anyone follows the law in the first place

do you see how asking these kinds of questions -- regardless of how you answer them -- at least gives the public a fighting chance in thinking through and soberly assessing the whole ball of wax?

Journalists need to remember that to inform the public, you’ve got to know where the public’s at. Once you know where the public’s at, you can come at them in way that gives them the best chance of being informed.

For some varying views on the Waxman-Markey legislation:

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2163

http://www.nesea.org/blog/2009/07/waxman-markey-legislating-guaranteed-failure/

http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/22/the-two-most-important-questions-that-both-critics-and-supportrs-of-waxman-markey-must-answer/