Toy for a moment with the notion that some of the best environmental “journalism” (emphasis, in quotes) is being done by nonjournalists.

You accept prima facie [talking dirty like that always makes me feel smart] that some of the worst so-called “journalism” is being done by nonjournalists. The schlock TV “magazines” and too many of the dot-com zine offerings make that abundantly clear.

But what about the best environmental journalism? That too, it turns out, is increasingly being done by those who might not fit the traditional strict-constructionist definition of who is and who isn’t a journalist.

This idle thought occurred on glancing at the October 11, 1999, cover of Newsweek. “The Wild Bunch,” the headline screamed, featuring Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, actor Warren Beatty and gazillionaire developer Donald Trump and their effort to “Stir Up Campaign 2000.”

How, I meandered though briefly, could we explain this to a Martian suddenly alighting on Earth? Or to a newly democratizing Eastern European or Muscovite still trying to make sense of their new-fangled democracy? (In a sense, of course, it’s in fact the essence of democracy, but that takes some getting used to!)

Oh, yes. That same cover footnoted references to Japan’s “nuclear scare” and to the new media darling, the West Nile virus. No slackers they, for sure, and arguably their impact could be felt well beyond the Ventura/Beatty/Trump contretemps.

But back to the earlier notion, that of journalism by nonjournalists, or whatever they now are called.

Journalist-turned-author. Reporter-turned-storyteller. Editor-turned-pamphleteer. Freelancer-turned-book author. You get the picture.

Take, as just one example, an entry called Wild Duck Review, a provocative (and progressive) quarterly tabloid selling for $24 a year and published out of Nevada City, California.

“Literature, Necessary Mischief, & News,” cries Editor and Publisher Casey Walker’s obvious labor of love.

And more. Lots more. Filled with lengthy interviews, poetry, book reviews, and photographer Hank Meals’ riveting black-and white photography, Wild Duck Review’s winter and summer 1999 offerings dealt extensively with the media and with biotechnology. They are a reader’s delight, a port amidst the stormy shoals of the mass media, the kind of stuff that makes you impatient for the next issue.

So too is some very interesting work being done in the somewhat more conventional Great Lakes Bulletin, published by the Michigan Land Use Institute, headed by former New York Times environmental writer Keith Schneider. No shrinking violet he, Schneider has fashioned, is fashioning, a publication that is having a real impact, and a constructive one, on the dialogue on “smart growth” and sprawl in Michigan.

It goes beyond, well beyond, the soft-covered periodicals. Take a glance, if you would , at New York Times science editor Cornelia Dean’s Against the Tide: The Battle for America’s Beaches, published by Columbia University Press.

Dean opens apologetically: “This is a journalist’s book, not a scientist’s or a scholar’s. It is an impressionistic tale woven of string gathered in interviews, at scientific meetings, on field trips and in conversations over a decade of travel along the East, West, and Gulf Coasts. It is not definitive.”

Definitive or not, this is classic good writing, borne of hour after hour of good reporting. Those wanting to understand the future of America’s coast lines should dig in. No apology needed.

That holds true too for two entries in the “… by Design” genre. One is Dennis S. Mileti’s 1999 Disasters by Design: A Reassessment of Natural Hazards in the United States (John Henry Press). The other is Ventura, California, free-lance science writer Kathryn Phillips’ Paradise by Design: Native Plants and the New American Landscape (North Point Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and she of Tracking the Vanishing Frogs fame, on frogs’ fragile ecology).

Be they journalists, or pamphleteers, or storytellers? Perhaps none (other than they?) dare call them journalists. But none dare deny either the value-added they bring well beyond the pap offered on so many traditional daily news pages.

With so much good reading to do, will there be time in the end for reading the daily papers?

Yes. But for substance and nourishment ....

Some 215 Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) members met with another 300 or so attendees for SEJ’s ninth national conference on the campus of UCLA September 16-19. They got a preview screening of the environmental problems and professional challenges they may face in the new millennium.

After official field trips to southern California landmarks like Catalina Island and Santa Monica Bay (and, it seems, more than a few casual and impromptu side trips to addresses made famous by the O.J. Simpson double murder trial), conference registrants cut their teeth on a smorgasbord of concurrent sessions ranging from the highly popular online journalism sessions to programs dealing with species extinction, bioremediation, western water politics, and much more.

As with most large conferences attended by professional colleagues year after year, much of the value of the meeting seemed to come not just from the formal sit-down briefings and presentations, but in particular from the hallway catching-up and conviviality. For some, the advent of tasty Dove ice cream bars as the highlight of an afternoon break set a standard future SEJ conferences may be expected to match or exceed.

SEJ leaders reported at their annual membership meeting that the organization’s overall membership has grown since last year, to about 1,125 members. About 680 individuals are registered as active members and another 239 as associate members, with academic and honorary members making up the balance. There were some concerns expressed at the membership meeting and throughout the conference that the overall representation at the conference of members – and perhaps in particular of “active” members comprising working media – was disappointing. While no official breakdown of active and associate members in attendance was provided, it appeared that working press were outnumbered roughly four-to-one at the conference.

Members attending the meeting elected several new members to the SEJ Board of Directors, which in turn re-elected Mike Mansur of the Kansas City Star as SEJ President. Among new priorities SEJ set for itself for next year: a redesign of the SEJ Web site and of the SEJournal; enhancements to efforts at outreach to newsrooms; and development of what the group hopes will be an “indispensable” book on environmental journalism.

The Los Angeles venue opened up a rich array of subjects for field trips and breakout sessions. Southern California is the arena for many hot environmental issues: LA’s famous smog (better, thank you), development on endangered species habitat, NAFTA and the cross-border environment, Colorado River water wars, viruses in stormwater runoff, whale protection, freeways and sprawl (invented there), pesticides on vegetables, wacky weather, and the millennial megalopolis. Briefings were held on all.

Host UCLA used the occasion of the meeting to showcase some of its own faculty research and also to publicize its 1999 Southern California Environmental Report Card.

Then there was the “Hollywood Lunch.” It was perhaps inevitable, with so many media people and so many celebrities so close together. Rod Jackson of ABC news put together a panel of celebrity activists and drew them out as would a talk show host. Sure, it was about appearances (one of the panelists was escorted by James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan). But panelists spoke in a candid and personal way that showed they knew as much about making the environment interesting as did journalists. A few in the audience were surprised at how intelligent the celebrities’ remarks were — not only serious activists like Ed Begley, Jr., and Ted Danson, but Baywatch’s Alexandra Paul, and The Wonder Years’ Danica McKellar and Entertainment Tonight’s Keely Shaye Smith.

Former Sierra Club leader David Brower left a Friday night theater-style audience in a standing ovation, which journalism purists would no doubt find problematic. If they had expected the 87-year-old “archdruid” of the environmental movement to sound feeble, they got the opposite. Brower proved himself a master of the rapid-fire sound bite. For example: “Economics is a form of brain damage.” “Growth is guilty until proven innocent.” “That’s a hell of a thing to say — and I said it!”

Saturday’s dinner reception at the Long Beach Aquarium was casual and laid-back. The food, catered courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, was gourmet-quality. You could buy a Hawaiian shirt or watch aquarium divers in a 142,000-gallon tank feed the yellow jacks (yes, it was interactive, they took questions from mikes inside their breathing masks). You could pet the sting rays (stings removed) or chat with Times editor Michael Parks beneath a looming life-size model of a blue whale, the world’s largest creature.

Electronic publishing caused a major buzz at the meeting. Adam Glenn’s Friday session on “Online Reporting” twice had to change to larger rooms, and still had standing room only (for those not sitting on window sills, tables, and floors). Panelist Leah Metcalf Gentry, new media editor for the Los Angeles Times, talked about new methods of high-speed, non-linear storytelling on the World Wide Web.

The mantra of today’s Web user, she said, is “What I want — when I want it.”

A similar overflow happened at Saturday’s “Network Lunch” table hosted by Dick Manning, creator of the bioregional electronic news sites Tidepool and Headwaters. Two tables pulled together could not seat all the attendees who were interested. The exhibit areas likewise had plenty of computer monitors showing off various publishing ventures using new media, whether online or via CD.

Many of the attendees crowding the electronic publishing sessions were themselves already actively involved in new media publishing. Amy Gahran, SEJ’s list keeper, was actually posting on SEJ’s Web site pictures shot at the conference the previous day.

As SEJ’s first national conference held on the West Coast, the meeting not surprisingly appeared to draw more heavily from the western states and somewhat less from the Midwest and East. One veteran of the SEJ conferences, acknowledging some difficulties in making the transition, said she found the Southern California ambience “just a bit too pleasant” and said she yearned to return to the street litter and occasional cigar smoke of her northeastern home.

Another seasoned SEJ veteran, asked if the conviviality and “chemistry” of the SEJ meeting weren’t at least as valuable as the heady substance of it all, retorted, “You mean to say you’re just finding that out?! Let’s say this: If I had to choose between the substance and the chemistry of the meeting, it wouldn’t be a hard decision.”

On that score – the chemistry of beat journalists meeting informally and sharing war stories with each other – a midwestern anchor appeared to capture the sentiment of many others in saying the meeting provided him an opportunity to “recharge and be reminded of why I’m passionate about wanting to cover this beat.”

Ready or Not? ...

Suggest an article on genetically engineered food, and your editor may react the same way EW’s editor did: with indifference and skepticism.

Why the lack of interest?

Because of the issue’s need for a catchy, cool label? Granted, the terms in this food fight are soporific: genetically altered, genetically engineered, genetically modified, biofoods, genetic pollution, or “Frankenfoods” (from Europe). Even the shortened “GM foods” gets readers confused about whether the story is about food, or American cars with meals included.

Why are so many editors hesitant to take on the issue?

Because of an initial association with activist Jeremy Rifkin, who first raised the biotechnology issue in the 1980s and is frequently referred to as a “self-promoting gadfly”? The Wall Street Journal may not be the only institution to recall “years of Rifkin-driven court cases against biotech,” which bored consumers and resolved little.

Because the issue involves complex processes that used to be called gene splicing? Even Consumer Reports needed a big graphic detailing five steps to explain how to make biotech corn.

Genetic engineering refers to the process of splicing plant or animal genes with particular traits into the DNA of other organisms. In food crops, this action can produce a “Flavr Savr” tomato that has a longer shelf life, crops that resist frost, plants that produce their own pesticides, and a “terminator” gene that makes plants produce sterile seeds, which prevents farmers from saving and replanting seeds and forces them to buy new seed each year.

The miracle of genetic engineering is seen by many as better living through biology — a way to feed the world, help farmers increase productivity, and produce a vegetable that will wash the dishes. It is seen by others as an insufficiently regulated scientific process with tremendous potential to go berserk and wreak inconceivable destruction on human health, the environment, and the agricultural economy.

Is it time to face genetically engineered food as a legitimate issue?

• “Consumer suspicion of the products is growing, especially after a Cornell University study earlier this year indicated that Monarch butterflies died after eating pollen from gene-altered corn plants that was supposed to be toxic only to certain caterpillar pests.” (Gannett News Service, September 13, 1999)
• “Widespread adoption of herbicide-resistant seeds may lead to greater use of chemicals that kill weeds .... In the United States, the Fish and Wildlife Service has found that [herbicide] Roundup already threatens 74 endangered plant species. Biological pollution from genetically engineered organisms may be another problem .... Such [“terminator”] genes could unintentionally sterilize other plants.” (New York Times op/ed piece by Peter Rosset, September 1, 1999)
• “Environmental lobby group Greenpeace is gearing up its international network to bring Canadian consumers into the fight against genetically modified food, which it says is dangerous for the environment and for people’s health .... The aim is to knock genetically modified food off the shelves, as Greenpeace and other environmentalists have done in the United Kingdom.” (Toronto Globe and Mail, September 1, 1999)
• “The U.S. has been on a collision course with the European Union over genetically modified foods. E.U. regulations have prohibited imports of unapproved varieties of genetically engi-neered corn. U.S. corn exports to Europe have virtually stopped — a $200 million loss.” (Consumer Reports, September 1999)
• “Several years ago, a company developed a soybean with some genetic threads borrowed from the Brazil nut in an attempt to boost the bean’s amino-acid content. The soy began acting like the nut — so much so that it churned out not just amino acids, but also chemicals that can trigger allergies in nut-sensitive consumers. The company quickly scrapped the product.” (Time, September 13, 1999)
• “Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., in a move that could dent farmer interest in biotechnology, warned its grain suppliers to begin segregating genetically modified crops from conventional crops. The statement by one of America’s biggest millers, which is being faxed to grain elevators throughout the Midwest, is the clearest sign yet that the consumer backlash over genetically modified crops in Europe and Asia is rattling American exporters.” (Wall Street Journal, September 2, 1999)
• “The trade issue — which is sure to generate plenty of heat at the November World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle — will be a tough one to resolve.” (Newsweek, September 13, 1999)

When the story has been covered in the last few weeks, it has been covered big: for example, Consumer Reports devoted six pages to its “Seeds of Change” story, Time and Newsweek both gave their stories three full pages, and Gannett News Service distributed a story with a sidebar and graphics.

Here are some examples of how the genetically engineered food story has played in publications across the country:

Barron’s: “Despite the recent backlash against genetically engineered crops, companies such as DuPont, Novartis and Monsanto are likely to press ahead with their efforts in this area — and wisely so. To date, such crops have garnered little public enthusiasm, in part because they provide few advantages to the public. Indeed, most of the advantages go to farmers, who like to use genetically altered seeds because they produce more crops per acre and require far less pesticide use than ordinary seeds do. The public perception could change, however, if further research produces genetically engineered crops that offer health benefits to consumers. This could come in the form of soybean oil with lower fat levels, for example, or grain with especially high amounts of vitamin E.”

Boston Globe: “Because nearly 60 percent of all processed foods — everything from pickles to peanut butter — contain corn or soybeans that have been grown with genetically engineered seeds, Americans are already dining regularly on DNA-altered cuisine, probably without knowing it. The deception, if it can be called that, is intentional. Efforts to label foods with genetically altered components have largely failed out of a concern that illogical fears about scientifically-produced foods would unfairly harm a new and promising industry. Yet the speed with which that industry has taken off with no special regulatory oversight has even some scientists worried about what the future may bring as more and more gene-tinkered foods come to market.”

Consumer Reports: “Our tests of everyday groceries show that genetically engineered foods are already on supermarket shelves — in baby formulas, tortilla chips, drink mixes, taco shells, ‘veggie’ burgers, muffin mix — and even in fast-food fare. There’s no evidence such foods on the market aren’t safe to eat .... In fact, U.S. consumers are largely unaware of the issue ....

“Concerns have been raised, for example, that the process of genetic engineering could inadvertently increase natural toxins or decrease nutrients in some foods .... Environmental issues are another concern. One problem is that pollen from a genetically engineered plant that is resistant to herbicides might hitch a ride with honeybees, or catch a breeze and ‘jump’ to other plants, perhaps spawning ‘superweeds.’ Such gene flow is more likely to pose a problem when genetically engineered plants have wild, weedy relatives nearby ....

“One problem is that the regulatory framework is fragmented. The USDA approves the ‘release’ in outdoor test plots of genetically engineered plants, and also approves crops for production. The FDA oversees the safety of genetically modified food — but not of any pesticide it expresses. And the EPA regulates the pesticide expressed via genetic engineering — but not the genetically modified food itself.”

Gannett News Service: “In the months ahead, the issue could develop into a nasty international trade battle between the United States, which says science has proven gene-altered crops are safe, and countries in Europe that complain the technology was unwisely rushed to market by profit-hungry biotechnology firms. American farmers, particularly those who grow corn, already are losing more than $200 million in sales a year in Europe because France and other countries stopped imports from the United States .... For many farmers, the risk of selling into an uncertain market outweighs, at least in the short term, the boosts in crop yields and savings on pesticides that come from biotech farming.

Newsweek: “ADM [Archer Daniels Midland] had noticed something new sprouting under the bright, warm sun of economic interdependence: a strange hybrid of cultural and economic fears. So it decided to act before the problem got any bigger .... Now the protests and the tabloid headlines about ‘Frankenstein Foods’ have reached such a pitch that they’re reverberating across the Atlantic. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, a longtime backer of biotechnology, admitted as much in a key speech in July. So did Heinz and Gerber when they announced the same month that they’ll go to the considerable trouble of making their baby foods free of genetically modified organisms. Groups such as Greenpeace, which have long fought biotech on both continents, are crowing. U.S. trade officials, who face a tough fight keeping markets open for American agricultural products, are worrying. And U.S. consumers, who have never really thought much about genetically modified foods, are just plain confused.”

New York Times: (“Eating Well” column) “When a field of genetically altered corn at the University of Maine was destroyed by protesters in mid-August, it was a rare hint that uneasiness over bioengineering in agriculture is growing among Americans .... One reason may be that most of them don’t have a clue that many foods are already being made with genetically engineered ingredients: no labeling is required in this country, nor is Government approval ....

“Because so few safety studies have been done, there is no evidence that genetically engineered food now on the market is unsafe to eat. But some scientists and consumer advocates worry about the potential for unknown allergens, an increase in natural toxic substances, a decrease in nutritional value and especially environmental damage. In addition, some religious groups are concerned about the possibility that genes from foods they are forbidden to eat will be put into other foods, like shellfish genes into a tomato....

“But the big issue, as Consumer Reports emphasized, is whether consumers should be informed when bioengineered ingredients are used, so they can decide whether to avoid them.”

Time: “Around the world, people are taking a closer look at the genetic makeup of what they’re eating — and growing uneasy with what they see. Over the past decade, genetically modified (GM) food has become an increasingly common phenomenon as scientists in the U.S. and elsewhere have rewoven the genes of countless fruits and vegetables, turning everyday crops into uber-crops able to resist frost, withstand herbicides and even produce their own pesticides. In all, more than 4,500 GM plants have been tested .... The European Union has blocked the importation of some GM crops, and since 1997 has required that foods that contain engineered DNA be labeled as such. Plenty of trade watchers in Washington see the European actions as one more tweak from an increasingly powerful E.U. no longer intimidated by U.S. economic might. While that may be, the fact remains that the U.S. Congress may address a labeling bill of its own this fall, and some private groups are threatening lawsuits to force the issue. Even without legal action, public opinion is turning a more skeptical eye on GM technology.”

Wall Street Journal: “We guess the guy who came up with the name ‘terminator’ gene won’t be getting his bonus this year. It’s one of the reasons that a plague of plaintiffs lawyers is now descending on the agricultural biotech industry .... If that suppresses the development of this business, the losers will be the billions of people around the world for whom biotechnology promises a better life. Even in the developed world, after all, it wasn’t so long ago that food was scarce and expensive enough that ‘a chicken in every pot’ was actually a resonant political slogan.”

Washington Post: (Front-page news story) “As the crucial fall harvest season approaches, many U.S. farmers and other agricultural workers are in a near panic because of escalating uncertainty over genetically engineered crops. Farmers planted millions of acres of the high-tech crops this year. But foreign buyers are rejecting them in droves, despite aggressive U.S. marketing efforts and assurances of their safety ....

“Twelve days ago those developments hit home for many farmers, when Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the big Illinois-based buyer and exporter of farm commodities, made the ominous recommendation that U.S. farmers segregate their gene-altered and non-altered crops at harvest because of heightened demand for conventional varieties both domestically and abroad.

“The announcement left many farmers feeling angry and betrayed.”

Washington Post: (Editorial) “How to keep the politics of the issue and the probable ripple effects of choices like ADM’s — which send the message that there’s something wrong with modified products — from derailing biotechnology’s larger promise? This technology, after all, has been hailed as holding out hopes from lowering pesticide use to cutting Third World malnutrition. One important step is to distinguish the various criticisms being leveled at GM foods — some of them thoroughly far-fetched, others worthy of additional testing that could calm consumer fears .... The proper balance of safety testing between companies and the government is a legitimate area for further debate. So are companies’ environmental safeguards. But the purpose of such debate should be to improve biotech research and enhance its acceptance, not stop it in its tracks.”

Reuters Reverses Labeling Report

How confusing is the genetically modified food story? Ask Reuters, which had to reverse a story on a key issue within that debate.

Story #1: U.S. plans labels on genetically modified foods
By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - U.S. government agencies have agreed to develop a labeling plan for food products made from genetically modified crops, a key demand of the biotech-wary European market, an industry consultant said on Friday.

Consultant Charles Benbrook said the decision was made earlier this week at a meeting between officials of the U.S. Agriculture Department, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Things will move slowly, as they always do. But there definitely was a major breakthrough,’’ Benbrook, a consultant for Consumers Union and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, told reporters.

But Isi Siddiqui, a trade adviser to Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, told Reuters he had no knowledge of the agreement.

Story #2: U.S. denies any plan for biotech food labels
By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Clinton administration officials on Friday quickly shot down a suggestion the United States will offer a proposal in upcoming world trade talks for labeling food products made from genetically modified crops.

“That is absolutely not the case,” Peter Scher, special U.S. ambassador for agricultural trade, told Reuters in response to earlier comments made by an agriculture industry consultant. “We have no plans to bring a labeling proposal.’’

Genetically modified crops, such as new corn and soybean varieties planted in the United States since 1996, contain genes borrowed from other organisms to increase their resistance to herbicides and pests.

European consumers, in particular, have been wary of the new technology and want labels on foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Rules [regulating] the crops and other GMOs are expected to be a hot topic at World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks that begin in Seattle in late November.

Charles Benbrook, a biotechnology consultant, ignited the rush of Clinton administration denials after he told reporters that officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Agriculture Department had agreed earlier this week to develop a labeling proposal.

“Things will move slowly, as they always do. But there definitely was a major breakthrough,’’ said Benbrook, who once headed an agriculture research panel for the National Academy of Sciences.

Genetically Engineered Foods: Key Contacts

Journalists taking on the issue of genetically engineered foods will find as many points of view as there are points of controversy. Here’s a list of key contacts to get started.

• American Corn Growers Association, Gary Goldberg, CEO, Tulsa, OK, (918) 488-1829
• Biotechnology Industry Organization, Libby Mikesell, Communications Officer, Washington, DC, (202) 857-0244
• Environmental Defense Fund, Rebecca Goldburg, Senior Scientist, New York, NY, (212) 505-2100
• Greenpeace, Racine Tucker-Hamilton, Press Officer, Washington, DC, (202) 462-1177
• Grocery Manufacturers Association, Brian Sansoni, Communications Officer, Washington, DC, (202) 337-9400
• Union of Concerned Scientists, Margaret Mellon, Director, Agriculture and Biotechnology Project, and Jane Rissler, Senior Staff Scientist, Washington, DC, (202) 332-0900
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Andy Solomon, Press Officer, Washington, DC, (202) 720-4623
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Ellen Kramer, Press Officer, Washington, DC., (202) 260-4376
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Ruth Welch and Judy Foulke, Press Officers, Food Division, Washington, DC., (202) 205-4144

Note: Formerly published by the National Safety Council. Reprinted with permission.