CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The press and the environment
By the end of 2000 environmental issues were again hitting the world headlines. There is
“Still time to save the planet”, stated an editorial in one of South Africa’s major
newspapers (Mail & Guardian November 24-30, 2000). Another international
publication (The Economist November 18, 2000) advised “What to do with global
warming” in an article concerning a summit in the Netherlands on global warming,
attended by top politicians and officials from all over the world. Scientists said that the
prospects of climatic change are now more serious than ever. Whether these are just
single events of attention, or mark the beginning of a new wave of environmental interest
and media coverage, still remains to be seen. However, the furore around American
President George Bush’s dismissal of the Kyoto climate agreement, soon after taking
office in 2001, indicates the latter.
Historically, attention to the ‘environment’ as a public, political and social issue has gone
up and down in cycles (Hansen 1993). After a peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s the
issue declined until the mid- to late 1980s when a new interest took hold, possibly
sparked by events such as the Chernobyl nuclear accident and new scientific findings on
global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer. The early 1990s saw a new downperiod followed by certain ‘revisionist’ tendencies, particularly in the United States (U.S)
press, depicting the environmental crisis as exaggerated (Carmody 1995: 3). Along with
the ups and downs, environmental reporting has, during the last three decades, become
established as a separate field and beat within journalism, even if specialist reporters in
many instances have been hired and fired in tandem with the trends (Chapman 1997: 44).
This study is the first to extensively explore the field of environmental journalism in
South Africa. It examines newspaper coverage of the industrial area of South Durban. In
the study, the term environmental journalism includes both the coverage of ‘green’
issues, such as conservation, as well as ‘brown’ issues like air pollution. Importantly,
environmental journalism deals not only with the natural world, but also with people and
the social world in connection to the natural world. When the press occasionally wrote
about environment-related topics before the late 1960s, content was more limited. It was
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concentrated on conservation rather than pollution, often confined to outdoors coverage
in the sports section (Dennis: 1991: 59-60), and was largely removed from the political
sphere. This changed, as the severe consequences of pollution in industrialised societies
became evident. The environment rose as a core interest among a new sub-culture of
politically conscious groups of people in Western industrialised societies in the 1960s,
and from these groups grew a heterogeneous environmental movement. One thing they
had in common was that they did not see environmental problems as isolated phenomena,
but as a direct consequence of the dominating dogma of economic growth as the factor
for social development. In parallel with a visibly (and increasingly invisibly)
deteriorating environment, this view has helped remove environmentalism from being a
separate cause for conservationists to become an issue of wider social significance.
This is not to forget that what constitutes the ‘environment’ as a concept not only changes
in time, but also in space and culture. Environmental issues may have completely
different meanings in South Africa and Norway, for example. Generally, it is still right to
say that environmental issues during the last three decades have gained social, economic
and political significance and acceptance on a local, national, and increasingly global
level. Most countries have established environment departments, governments have
environment ministers, and it has generally become important to be seen as
environmentally friendly.
Moreover, Green parties have become a major force in politics. In Europe, they are
represented in government in France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Finland
(Economist.com, 13 April 2001). In the U.S. 2000 presidential election the leader of the
American Green party received significant support, as an alternative to the Democratic
and Republican candidates, but lacked the economic resources to defeat either of them. In
short, from being associated with radical elements on the fringes of society, being green
has become part of the mainstream. As the British environmentalist Jonathan Porrit and
journalist David Winner saw it in 1988:
Not so long ago, ‘greens’ were the bits of a golf course where the grass was
shortest, or the parts of the main course between the roast beef and the baked
potatoes. The word rarely passed the lips of British politicians, except among
those caring MPs and party leaders who advised their children, ‘Go on, eat up
your greens’. These days, The process of growing attention towards
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environmental issues cannot be explained without exploring the role of the mass
media however, Greens are a lot less easily digested – but far more politically
nourishing (Porrit and Winner 1988: 9).
. The media, “through the combined activities of investigative journalists, committed
filmmakers and campaigning pressure groups, have been instrumental in bringing
environmental issues to the forefront of popular and political consciousness” (Burgess
1990: 141). However, while environmental issues now have appeared in the mass media
on a more or less regular basis for three decades, mass mediated images and
representations of the environment have remained relatively unexplored (Cottle 1993:
108), and little is known about environmental journalism (Detjen et al 2000: 1). This is
certainly the case for South Africa, where no study to date has dealt at length with the
mass media and environmental issues, or specifically with environmental journalism.
If we believe Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature, there are very good reasons to
improve this situation. He finds that environmental journalism “is the most exiting, mindstretching and important journalism that will be done in the years to come”, and that “we
must do it well to have any chance at all of preserving the world as we have known it”
(McKibben 1991: xii).
Aim of the study
This thesis investigates the field of environmental journalism and focuses particularly on
South Africa through a case study of reporting in three Durban newspapers (The
Mercury, Daily News and Sunday Tribune) about pollution in the heavily industrialised
area of South Durban.
What is environmental journalism? How does environmental journalism contribute to the
making and shaping of environmental issues in the public sphere? What is included, what
is excluded? While such questions can and should be approached from several levels of
analysis and perspectives, this thesis is restricted to, firstly, content in actual stories and
secondly, conventions of environmental journalism. I have chosen to limit the study to
the coverage of air pollution. Industrial emissions to the air is a large and serious
pollution problem in the area, and has received most press coverage. Specifically, the
questions are:
1) In what way is air pollution represented in the newspaper stories?
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2) How do professional codes, news values and normative ideals structure the practices
of the journalists in the coverage of air pollution in South Durban?
The case of South Durban
Durban is the third largest city of South Africa, and the industrial area of the southern
part of the city is the second largest in South Africa, and close to the largest and busiest
port in Africa. The South Durban Industrial area is home to two large petrochemical
refineries and the Durban International Airport. Other industries in the area include a
paper mill, a sugar refinery, textile industries, an asbestos processing plant, chrome
processing industries, and many other chemical industries (Scott 1998: 3).
The industries are situated virtually in the midst of large, predominantly black1 residential
areas, as a result of racist apartheid policies. Policies adopted by the Durban City
Council in 1938 purposely brought forward industrial expansion within black residential
areas.2 The air pollution problem in the South Durban area is well documented (Scott
1998: 3). The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has described the area
as “a sad case of unplanned urban development allowing polluting industrial
development and apartheid high density residential development to occur side by side”
(ibid). There appears to be an abnormally high prevalence of cancer and lung diseases
among the residents of the area. The levels of carcinogenic toxic chemicals in South
Durban are among the highest in the world. An analysis carried out by an independent
non-governmental organisation (NGO) found levels to be up to 15 times higher than the
limits recommended by The World Health Organisation (The Mercury 13 September,
2000).
South Durban includes the residential areas of Merebank, Wentworth, Isipingo, Umlazi,
Bluff, Clairwood and Umbogintwini. Since 1997, the South Durban Community
Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), consisting of nine community organisations and two
NGOs, has campaigned for the creation of sustainable development in these residential
areas.
In this dissertation the term ‘black’ refers to people of Indian, African as well as mixed origin.
Submission to the Durban Metro by the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA),
November 4, 1999, page 3.
1
2
4
Pollution in South Durban has been on the agenda of the press for some time. The
SDCEA has been instrumental in bringing the issues to the forefront during the last few
years. In 2000 (September 11 to September 14) a series of stories (11 to 14 September
2000, see app. 3 to 9) in the Durban daily newspaper The Mercury highlighted the
relation between air pollution and the high number of serious health problems, child
leukaemia, and premature deaths among residents in the area. These stories led to further
coverage in other South African media, such as the Mail & Guardian, and on the TVprogramme Carte Blanche on M-Net. The coverage in Durban newspapers thus provides
an appropriate case for the study of environmental journalism in South Africa.
The study follows the development of the coverage over time, analysing articles as well
as interviewing journalists involved in the coverage in 1985, 1990, 1995 and 2000. The
central hypothesis examined is that the interpretations in the press of the environmental
problems in South Durban have changed during these years, in keeping with political
changes in the country. While, for instance, 1985 saw the introduction of the first state of
emergency as well as a significant alternative press, a new phase started in 1990 with the
unbanning of left-wing political groups and the release of Nelson Mandela. By 1994 a
period of transformation began, and a new government and new democratic structures
were in place.
The structure of the dissertation
Before approaching these questions, Chapter 2 outlines the central theories and methods
of research applied. Theories of news and theories of discourse form the theoretical basis
of the inquiry. Norman Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) framework for critical discourse
analysis, supplemented by insights from Teun van Dijk (1996), constitute the main tools
for the analysis of both text data and interviews, as well as connecting insights from
previous research.
Chapter 3 gives a review of already existing research and literature on media and the
environment, internationally and in South Africa. Given the short life of the environment
as a media issue, this is naturally a relatively new field of specialisation within media
studies. There are, however, a number of significant publications, mainly from the late
1980s and the 1990s. This is important background material for exploring the questions
from a South African perspective.
5
The empirical analysis commences in Chapter 4, with the results of the quantitative
analysis of the coverage of air pollution in South Durban and the representation of
different groups, or sources. Chapter 5 takes a qualitative approach, where a largely text
oriented discourse analysis is carried out. The textual level is taken into wider sociocultural considerations in Chapter 6, discussing journalistic practices on the background
of the interviews with the reporters, along with theoretical aspects. I round up with a
conclusion in Chapter 7.
CHAPTER 2
THEORIES
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This chapter presents the theoretical foundations for the thesis. Three types of literature
are reviewed. Firstly, an overview of previous research on mass media and the
environment internationally and in South Africa is offered. Secondly, theories of news
and news production are examined, followed by a section on normative theories of
journalism. Then follows an explanation of the concept of discourse and theories of
discourse, which underpins the qualitative methods presented in the next chapter.
Specifically, this research project relies on Fairclough (1992, 1995) and van Dijk's (1996)
methods, and a theoretical discussion of their ideas is given at the end of this chapter.
Media and the environment: A Research Overview
Most research on mass media and the environment is concentrated in the second half of
the 1980s and early 1990s, when environmental interest was at an all time high and took
on a new global and increasingly political character. The Exxon Valdez oil spill in
Alaska, The Bhopal-catastrophe in India, Chernobyl in Russia, along with new scientific
findings about the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect affected news in the 1980s. In
1988 former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher somewhat surprisingly declared
her ‘green speech’3, where she put the environment at the forefront of political
challenges. Former American President George Bush declared himself environmental
president (McCormick 1991: 197). The numbers of reporters specially assigned to
environmental coverage increased significantly during the period from 1988 to 1990
(Friedman 1991: 19, Chapman et al 1997).
International research
Probably due to the relatively short time the ‘environment’ has been a media issue,
research on the mass media and its relation to environmental issues is not extensive. It is
therefore possible to give a rough overview of most recent research within the field
relevant to the focus in this dissertation, on aspects of production and content in
environmental journalism. A few studies can be found from the 1970s, many which
document the early growth of media interest, mainly in the press (Burgess 1990).
In their influential and often quoted article Parlour and Schatzow (1978) find that the
Canadian mass media played a major role in generating public concern for environmental
Thatcher’s ‘green speech’ to the Royal Society helped trigger a wave of media interest in green issues
(Cracknell 1993:7).
3
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problems from 1960-1972. They observe that prior to 1965 coverage was generally low
and sporadic. Then there was a dramatic increase between 1968 and 1970, followed by an
equally dramatic decrease. The period leading up to the increase in media coverage was
one of relative economic and political growth and stability, and indicates that the amount
of attention might have been much less if the issue had to compete with other pressing
issues attracting the attention of news production. They find support for this in the fact
that after 1972 the environment as an issue was largely replaced by energy and economic
issues (Parlour and Schatzow 1978: 15).
Measured by the frequency of the topic in academic journals, communication scholars
seem to have taken new interest in researching the relations between media and the
environment in the aftermath of the peak in environmental interest in the late 1980s. An
editorial in the journal Media Development (1990: 1) speaks optimistically of a “New
Environmental Order” to succeed where the New International Economic Order of the
1970s and the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) of the
1980s failed.4
In the same edition Hansen observes how the environment has become institutionalised,
with governments having absorbed environmental radicalism (Hansen 1990: 5). Hansen
concludes that the ‘radical potential’ of the mass media in the social and political
construction of the environment depends on alternative voices. For example, pressure
groups can be able to influence the messages of environmental issues of the media. A
major difficulty in reaching the media agenda is their normally unfit structure for 24-hour
news cycles, with the exception of dramatic and/or spectacular events.
Dunwoody and Griffin (1993) study the long-term coverage in local newspapers of three
contaminated waste sites in Wisconsin, U.S., after the introduction of federal
environmental regulation in 1980. They find firstly that journalists from a wide range of
media tend to operate with similar frames. That is, they work within the same set of tacit
conventions and routines and thus end up depicting reality in similar ways. These frames
are very much the same as are held by bureaucracy sources. The studies find in general
that journalists allow their sources to determine much of what reaches the newspaper
4
NWICO was based on initiatives by mainly Third World countries, channelled through UNESCO, attempting
to restructure imbalances in the Western dominated global media system.
8
columns, and the assumed scepticism of the journalist profession is not much present.
Secondly, frames are influenced by occupational and organisational norms, such as the
strong event-orientation of news-production.
Dunwoody and Griffin find that any given dimension “became news only when it
coincided with the interpretative framework provided by the occupation” (1993: 47). This
prevents journalists from seeing the bigger picture and allows sources to define it, they
argue. In this way coverage tend to reflect the “prevailing power structure” (Dunwoody
and Griffin 1993: 49) of the communities they are operating in.
Another occupational structure, which influences coverage in these case studies, are the
assumed information-ingestion habits of the audience. Assuming that the audience
follows the ongoing coverage, some information becomes ‘old news’, which will not be
included in the stories since journalists take for granted that the audience already knows.
Health risks, for example, may be in focus early in the coverage of an issue, but may
disappear later (Dunwoody and Griffin 1993: 47).
Einsiedel and Coughlan (1993) combine quantitative and qualitative analysis and
interviews with journalists in Canadian newspapers. In a sample from seven metropolitan
newspapers from 1986-1987 they find that four in ten stories are generated by the local
newspaper, the rest comes from wire services. They find that environmental stories
mostly follow typical news formats. The stories are, as in Dunwoody and Griffin’s
studies, both strongly event-oriented and they rely heavily on institutional sources, in
particular government officials (Einsiedel and Coughlan 1993: 136). This is confirmed in
Cottle’s study (1993), other than the fact that environmental groups are on top of the list
of ‘official sources’.
Einsiedel and Coughlan’s analysis of environmental subjects in the Canadian Newspaper
Index from 1977 to 1990, adds insights into the changes over time. After 1985 there
seems to be a shift from describing issues in terms of singular categories such as ‘air
pollution’ or ‘wildlife management’ to a more holistic, integrated categories such as
‘ecology’ and ‘environmental protection’. There is also an increased tendency after 1985
to present stories in a global context.
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During the 1980s the ‘environment’ takes on a broader set of meanings, indicated by an
increase in what Einsiedel and Coughlan call second-order and third-order sub-topics.
During this period the ‘environment’ “permeated a wide range of fora – from the legal
arena to tourism, from construction to consumerism, from feminism to terrorism”
(Einsiedel and Coughlan 1993: 142). New terms appear in headlines such as ‘ecofeminism’, ‘eco-tourism’ and ‘environmentally friendly products’. Finally, the headline
analysis reveals a growing tendency of portraying, or ‘framing’ the environment as a
social problem, and an increasingly serious one. The use of phrases like ‘threatens
world’, ‘save earth’, and ‘environmental risks’ become more frequent from 1985, and by
1985 an element of action in reporting is evident in terms such as ‘environmental
campaign’, ‘environmental law’, environmental strategy etc. By the late 1980s, “the
social construction of the environmental degradation was no longer a matter of
speculation but a harsh reality” (Einsiedel and Coughlan 1993: 143). This is also reflected
in an intensified appearance of mobilising information. Einsiedel and Coghlan’s
speculation is that this pattern indicates “the newspapers’ perceived general consensus
among its audiences that doing something to save the environment was critical”
(Einsiedel and Coughlan 1993: 144).
Perhaps the biggest controversy surrounding environmental journalism in the last 10 to
15 years is the question of advocacy versus objectivity. Two journalists interviewed by
Einsiedel and Coghlan agreed that they could be seen as advocates for the environment
(1993: 137). Of the six interviewed all came from a social science, humanities or
journalism background, and three of them saw the lack of a science background as a
handicap.
As opposed to journalists, environmental organisations have advocacy for the
environment as their defined purpose. As has been shown, government officials seem to
be the dominant sources in environmental reporting, but environmental pressure groups
have also developed a symbiotic relationship with the mass media (Cracknell 1993: 6).
Hansen (1993b) assesses the media attention Greenpeace received in the period.
Greenpeace is, along with Friends of the Earth, the most successful environmental group
in the world in this respect. Hansen finds that Greenpeace is perceived as a highly
respectable source among journalists. However, much of the coverage Greenpeace got in
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the period from 1987 to 1991 is related to campaigns. This fits into the picture of
environmental reports (like other news-reports) as event-oriented.
Linné’s (1991, 1993) comparative study of professional codes and news routines among
environmental journalists in BBC’s Nine O’ Clock News and DR’s TV-avisen in Denmark
provides some interesting additions to Hansen’s study on Greenpeace as a source. While
the British journalists express a positive view on Greenpeace as a reliable source with
high credibility, the Danish journalists do not trust the information from this
environmental group. Linné explains this difference in the different experiences
journalists in Copenhagen and London have had with the group. In particular, the Danish
journalists were influenced by their encounters with Greenpeace’ anti-seal culling
campaign in Greenland in the 1980s (Greenland is under Danish rule). In Denmark the
campaign was largely perceived as unfair, not taking the social context into account,
namely that the people on Greenland rely on seal culling for survival. At the same time,
both British and Danish journalists interviewed for the study declare a strong
commitment to journalistic objectivity. Interestingly, many of the journalists say they
have changed through the years and were greater advocates of the environment in the
early stage of their careers.
Environmental issues often have a strong element of risk. In “Environmental Risk and
the Press”, Sandman et al (1987) attempt to find practical ways of improving riskreporting through case studies of newspapers in New Jersey, U.S., along with interviews
with journalists as well as scientists and activists. Sandman et al, find that government is
a principle source for journalists, in this case specifically in environmental risk-reporting.
Here industry and unattributed sources are added to those mostly given access in the
media. It is further indicated that journalists tend to think in dichotomies; a situation is
risky or not risky, a substance is present or not present (1987: 100).
This dualistic thinking does not fit well with what is generally agreed upon by the
contributers to another, mainly U.S.-centred book, “Media and the Environment” (La
May and Dennis 1991). The reality of environmental problems is increasingly complex. It
involves scientific, economic, cultural, social, legal, political, and philosophical aspects.
From this John Maxwell Hamilton (1991) argues that we not only need specialised
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science reporters, environmental reporters should instead populate every beat. “If
connections are to be made everyone should cover the environment” (1991: 14).
The question is how? The media “hate ambiguity” (Dennis: 55), while the environment is
“awash in ambiguities" (Dunwoody and Griffin 1993). Journalists still stick to a set of
traditional professional conventions and news values. Events make news, but
environmental problems more often take form of processes, such as the greenhouse
effect. Government sources are given prominence, while the consequences of pollution
probably are more felt on the community level. These contradictions are of course present
within journalism in general. The broad, complex and serious nature of environmental
problems have however, brought some journalists to challenging the settled convention of
objectivity. As mentioned, the question of advocacy versus objectivity is a central
controversy within environmental journalism. In 1989 even Time senior editor Charles
Alexander proclaimed himself an advocate for the environment, after Time made the
Earth its “Planet of the Year” in 1988 (Hamilton 1991: 4)
The advocacy-objectivity debate is discussed in several of the articles in “Media and the
Environment” (LaMay and Dennis 1991) written by practising journalists. Ryan (1991)
delivers the strongest defence for advocacy journalism in environmental coverage. For
Ryan, covering the environment is about empowerment. She argues that the way the
“duelling perspectives approach” is practised creates apathy rather than empowerment.
Her version of advocacy journalism is focused on giving practical solutions, encouraging
participation, and offering a “path for change” (Ryan 1991: 87). I say her version because
there exists no common understanding of where objectivity ends and advocacy begins.
Advocacy in Ryan’s terms does not mean giving up commitment to secure facts, the
point in any case is to tell the truth, she argues.
Craig L. LaMay agrees and wants to make information “actionable” (1991: 111). This
can only be done by teaching, not by simply disseminating information wrapped in an
illusion of objectivity, according to LaMay. Environmental journalism must adapt a new
moral basis, values that promote awareness, not passivity. Environmental journalists
arguing for advocacy are moving in that direction, and LaMay hopes they can influence
the whole journalism profession to change and claims journalists who argue for advocacy
“may be ahead of their peers in recognizing that their profession needs to look critically
12
at where it is going” (LaMay 1991: 107. If they don’t, “they may find themselves toiling
as monks in a new age of information elites” (ibid).
At the opposite end of the scale from Ryan (1991) and LaMay (1991), (Detjen (1991)
advocates objectivity, and naturally claims that objectivity is possible, if hard to achieve.
He fears advocacy might be destructive in the long term, robbing journalism of
credibility. However, his position is perhaps not as different from the advocacy
journalists as he claims. For one Detjen (1991) equates advocacy with giving up values of
fairness and accuracy, which it does not, at least in Ryan’s understanding of the term.
Further, he argues, like LaMay (1991), for educating the public and giving practical tips,
which in his view is not advocacy. He also thinks media coverage should be more
focused on solutions. There is no doubt that Ryan, LaMay and Detjen have different ideas
about journalism, but judging from these three articles, it may seem that the advocacyobjectivity controversy is more rhetorical than real.
A more recent extensive publication on media and the environment (Chapman et al 1997)
explores the differences of environmental media practice, content and audience
perception between the ‘developed’ and the ‘the developing’ world, an issue recognised
earlier as “notably absent” (Hansen 1993: xvii). Starting with Great Britain and news
agencies in the North, Chapman et al confirm many of the findings from previous
research. The complexity of environmental issues combined with the rigidity of news
criteria again surfaces as a major reason for inadequate or lack of coverage.
Environmental stories frequently do not fit the time frames of news, since they move at a
“glacial pace” (Chapman et al 1997: 47). Scientific detail is difficult to make
understandable to a mass audience, and the issues can be hard to fit into a news
scheme of two-sided conflict. Another factor pointed out is the highly competitive
circumstances of the newsroom. It takes a lot of effort to acquire time and space for a
relatively new subject such as the environment. In the experience of British
environmental journalists, the cost is the single biggest factor constraining the amount of
coverage environmental stories get. When it comes to the question of advocacy versus
objectivity, all the reporters wanted to stay neutral over environmental controversies.
Media interest in the environment moves in cycles relatively unaffected by the
environmental situation (Hansen 1993). Chapman et al (1997) suggest two explanations
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for this. The first one harmonises well with the widespread notion that government
officials are dominant sources. Simply put, there are three major competing and
intertwined agenda-setters which decide what ends up in the pages or on the screen; the
media itself, the public and the politicians (the national agenda). Among these the
politicians have predominance. The appearance and disappearance of the environment
thus relies on the preoccupations of the politicians at certain times. For example,
following Thatcher’s ‘green speech’ in 1988, most major media in Britain hired
environmental correspondents. In 1989, after the rise of the formerly unknown Green
Party in European Union (EU) elections, Tory politicians removed the environment from
the agenda. Two years later, the only environmental correspondents left where those with
the broadsheet press (Chapman et al 1997: 44). The other explanation is in line with
Parlor and Schatzows (1978) conclusion from the 1970s that economic issues pushed the
environment out. The early 1990s saw an economic recession and the environment came
to be seen as a ‘luxury item’ (Parlor and Schatzows 1978: 45).
Chapman et al (1997) also focus on the contested meanings that go into people’s ideas of
the environment and state, that journalists have their own categorising frameworks for
different reporting formats. The word ‘environment’ is “a classificatory umbrella for a
frame of reference used to view and report particular issues”, not necessarily “for the
objects or issues themselves” (Chapman et al 1997: 24-25). That means that for instance
a farmer might consider an area sprayed with pesticides a field, while an environmental
journalist might think of it as ‘the environment’.
Obviously, frames can and will vary with context. Unlike in Britain and among
international news agencies, in India it can be hard to find any ‘environmental’ category
at all (Chapman et al 1997). If there is one, it can hardly be separated from issues of
development, and it is generally less abstract. One example of a big issue is the building
of the massive Narmada Valley dam project in India. This project can on the one hand
potentially improve the lives of 40 million people through water and electricity access.
On the other hand it implies enormous environmental destruction as well as the removal
of between 40 000 and 1 000 000 tribal people, “the archetypes of the disempowered and
downtrodden” (Chapman et al 1997: 78)
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There is one particularly interesting difference in journalistic values between Indian
reporters and reporters from the North. Several interviewees said they wanted to
campaign for certain issues, thus placing themselves far apart from the ‘Western’
convention of objectivity, but also in line with the advocacy movement. As a matter of
fact, none of the Indian journalists expressed any obligation to be neutral or objective in
their reporting. However, campaigning on an environmental issue does not often mean
campaigning only for its ‘greenness’. It is likely to have a developmental focus and focus
on the poor. The link between environment and development in Indian journalism is
further confirmed by Chapman et al (1997) through statistical content analysis of two
papers where the connection between the environment and development is present. In the
Britain the link is virtually not present at all.
Research in South Africa
Like India, South Africa has a history of colonialism; and like India South Africa is a
linguistically and culturally heterogeneous developing country with a significant
‘developed’ segment among the majority of the poor. Given these similarities (of course
there are also huge differences) between India and South Africa, one might assume
similarities when it comes to environmental journalism as well. However, no significant
research has been carried out on the topic in South Africa to reveal any answers.
5
The only study on the topic existing is an analysis of the coverage in the South African
media of the mining plans in the St. Lucia nature reserve (Avis 1993). Interestingly, it is
the question of advocacy in environmental reporting that is under scrutiny. The study
states, that “The St Lucia controversy presents a fine example of advocacy journalism,
with biased and inaccurate reporting” (Avis 1993: 47). This not to be misunderstood as
the author finding advocacy journalism “fine”. The evidence of the statement is based on
content analysis of a sample of 1351 newspaper articles from June 1989 to August 1993,
covering the St Lucia issue. Articles where classified as either pro-mining, anti-mining or
neutral (objective). The results show a majority, 53 per cent, of anti-mining articles. From
this the author concludes that the press distorted the St Lucia issue, and that articles
5
This is not to say that environmental journalism is only a recent phenomenon in South Africa. Primarily, it was
James Clarke of The Star who opened the space for the beat and put environmental reporting on the map during
the 1970s. It should be stressed that my study concerns only the Durban newspapers.
15
“reflect the emotional nature of the issue, with scientific facts and tangible evidence
being ignored” (Avis 1993: 49).
A number of factors compromise the academic credibility of Avis’ research. Firstly, the
study lacks any discussion or theorising around the concepts of objectivity and advocacy
in journalism. Secondly, the criteria for the classification of the articles are extremely
simplistic. The author finds no reason to come up with criteria for what goes for an “antimining article”. “Neutral” articles were those which were “well researched” and
presented a “balanced, informed viewpoint”. “Pro-mining” articles “tended to present
arguments in favour of mining” (Avis 1993: 47). Thirdly, the botanist author was himself
involved in the scientific assessment of the St Lucia issue, and thus in the controversy
surrounding it.
In sum, research on media and the environment clearly indicates that the media and the
journalists treat environmental issues in much the same way as any other issue. That is,
traditional news values, especially the strong event-orientation and reliance on
institutional sources, direct what is covered and how it is covered. However,
environmental issues are often complex phenomena rather events, and are therefore
sometimes difficult to appropriate to standardised news formats. Also, environmental
journalists appear to be more polarised than other journalists when it comes to questions
regarding objectivity and advocacy. Third world journalists appear to see a much closer
link between developmental and environmental issues than their first world colleagues.
Theories of news
What is news? According to Dan Berkowitz (1997: xii), the answers to this question
generally differ according to views common to journalists, and the insights provided by
social scientists. For journalists, news is related to “what people need to know and what
they should know about their community, their country and their world” (ibid). The news
and the knowledge it contains, can, in this view, ideally be produced and disseminated
with the help of certain newsgathering techniques and professional standards.
The most important of these standards, especially in American journalism since the 1920s
(Christians 1997: 33), is ‘objectivity. Even if objectivity is seen as crucial by most
journalists, it is disputed what it means in practice, and to what degree it is possible and
16
desirable. Generally, we can say that objectivity means in journalism, like in other
empirical disciplines, to be free from values and ideology (Gans 1979: 182). Journalists
should instead stick to the facts, gathered objectively. In other words, facts are assumed
to be separable from values. Objectivity understood as a media practice or attitude to the
task of information collection, processing and dissemination has the following main
characteristics: There is an absence of subjectivity and personal involvement in the object
of reporting. The journalist does not take sides. There is dedication to truth criteria such
as accuracy, relevance and completeness, and absence of ulterior motive or bias towards
a third party features (McQuail 1994: 145).
The social and human sciences are primarily interested in journalism as a social and
cultural activity. Researchers within this field see news values, the criteria that decide
what becomes newsworthy, as social, political and cultural values, inherent in journalism.
Hence, journalism and news separated from values, or even ideology, is impossible.
Ideology can be defined as “meaning in the service of power” (Thompson 1984, 1990 in
Fairclough 1995: 14). The question of “What is news?” is instead approached by
investigating the processes which direct the gathering, selection and production of news,
and how these are part of broader mechanisms in society.
There are no universal news values, but there is still a striking unity and stability with
regard to news values (McQuail 1994: 270). Among the studies attempting to identify the
news values that guide the modern news production process, Galtung and Ruge’s (1965)
study of the foreign news content in Norwegian newspapers is arguably still the most
influential. Though written 36 years ago, the study has not lost its descriptive value.
Galtung and Ruge stress the socio-cultural factors in news production. For example, news
events prioritise events about elite people, elite nations and negative happenings. This
can, they claim, can be derived from a ‘Northern European’ socio-cultural influence
(ibid). Furthermore, news is characterised by events that fit into the knowledge base the
audience already has from past news. Single events of a certain scale are reported rather
than phenomena or processes. There is a focus on the dramatic and the unexpected, as
well as the unambiguous, as long as it confirms existing stereotypes (Fowler 1991: 14).
Galtung and Ruge’s (1965) way of analysing news is mainly associated with critical
theory. Critical theory embraces a broad set of neo-Marxist approaches, such as Cultural
17
Studies on the one hand, and Critical Political Economy on the other. Cultural Studies is
concerned with meaning and the function of meaning in all sorts of texts. The
Birmingham School, for example represented by Stuart Hall, rejects the whole notion of
objectivity in news. Value and ideology are deeply implicated in media production and
content. This claim builds on Gramsci’s (1971) concept of hegemony. Hegemony
essentially means that the authoritative class rules by consent rather than coercion,
through imposing a taken-for-granted version of reality, that is the ideology of the ruling
class. Media messages are not defined only by the media itself, but give “preferential
access to the definitions of those in authority”, and thus contribute to the preservation of
existing power structures (McQuail 1994: 99). It follows from this that language and
discourse has the power to shape the development of society, a role assigned to the
economic base by earlier orthodox Marxist positions.
Political Economy on the other hand sees media performance and content as largely
determined by economic structures. News is viewed as being in the service of those in
power, and it has even been labelled as propaganda (Herman and Chomsky 1988).
Professional norms such as objectivity function more to disguise these realities than limit
them. The claim is that, especially in the current climate of excessive corporatisation, it is
naive to believe that journalism stands a chance against commercialism. “Indeed, the
interests of owners and advertisers were readily accommodated within the doctrine of
professionalism and objectivity” (Herman and McChesney 1997: 192).
John H. McManus’ (1994) assertion is similar. On the basis of recent empirical
observations he argues that traditional journalism, based on the principal norm of public
enlightenment, is losing against market-driven journalism, which is “spreading like a
sniffle through a day-care center” (MacManus 1994: xii). News are increasingly shaped
by market-thinking were the principal norm is “to maximize profits over an indefinite
period” (MacManus 1994: 25).
Normative theories of journalism
MacManus’ argument rests on the assumption that journalism essentially is a normative
practice with a specific and intrinsic democratic role (Berger 2000a). Objectivity is not
the only norm that has been recommended for this role. Several scholars have produced
normative typologies relating to both media performance and structure (McQuail 1994:
18
122) 6, which can be useful for analytical purposes. Berger’s (2000a: 84-87) normative
ideal types (theoretically generalised models) are compiled from number of different
normative theories. Many normative theories do not distinguish between ‘journalism’ and
‘media’. Berger’s models are based on the assumption that journalism, as much as it
operates within its institutional context, should simultaneously be seen as an autonomous
practice. This approach fits well with the focus on journalism and the practice of
journalism in this dissertation.
The liberal position
Building on Enlightenment rhetoric from J.S. Mill, journalists are seen as an active
political force in society, adversarial to that of politicians, autonomous of owners,
political and other vested interests. They guard the rights of the citizens through
checking on powerholders (watchdog journalism), and thus focusing on problematic
rather than harmonious aspects.
The social democratic position
The political role of the journalist emphasises the responsibilities towards the citizens and
the contribution to a democratic culture, rather than being a watchdog on powerholders.
Public service broadcasting is strongly associated with this position, where education is
considered a key task for the journalist, and the role of the media is linked to nationbuilding.
The neoliberal position
This perspective is connected to notions of pluralism and diversity, and has come to the
forefront during the last decade in relation to struggles against totalitarian and
authoritarian political systems. In the neoliberal view, politics is regarded a commodity
and journalists are supposed to provide consumers the spectre of available offers on the
market, impartially and balanced. Journalists, instead of being messengers are “neutral
referees in the contest of political forces” (Berger 2000a: 85).
6
Examples are The Hutchins Commision (1947) with their social responsibility theory, and Siebert et al (1956)
who classified media systems around the world into four types. More recent examples include the developmental
oriented McBride (1980), and Christians (1993), who takes a communitarian (participative) perspective.
19
The participatory position
From this outlook democracy is not only about citizens participating in elections, but
continuous participation in civic life by all, not only the elites. An important task for the
journalist is therefore to provide everyone, in particular the grassroots, with a substantial
voice. Where the neoliberal position sees audiences as consumers of politics, the
participatory journalist views audiences as producers of politics. The arena of
participation is the community level, not the nation, as in the social democratic position.
Some of these ideas have recently been put into life by the public and civic journalism
movement (mainly in the US), where journalists strive to be not only observers, but to
become social actors in their communities.
Theories of discourse
The popular meaning of the term ‘discourse’ in all Western European languages refers to
‘learned discussion’ and ‘dialogue’ (Titscher et al 2000: 25). In academic terms discourse
is a broader and sometimes confusing concept, used in different ways in different
circumstances. There are also several approaches to discourse analysis used in academic
fields as different as psychology, literature, and media studies. The purpose here is to
provide a basic background to critical discourse analysis as a method, which is
explained in the following section.
Fairclough (1995) identifies two main understandings of the term discourse. One is
predominant in language studies; discourse as social actions and interactions in real social
situations. The other belongs in post-structuralist social theory. Here discourse appears as
a social construction of reality and a form of knowledge, an understanding mainly
associated with the works of Michel Focault (Fairclough 1995: 18). Fairclough’s critical
discourse analysis, applied to the media, aims at including both understandings of
discourse.
Such a view of discourse theory is grounded in the notion that reality, as much as it is
materially there, is formed and reformed in language and systems of language, or, with
another term, discourse. Thus, the construction of reality, or of a particular phenomenon,
depends on what is included or excluded in discourse. Discourse is “a relational totality
of signifying sequences that together constitute a more or less coherent framework for
what can be said and done”, as Torfing (1999: 300) defines it. Breaking with modernist
20
perceptions, post-structuralism rejects fixed totalities, and discourses are therefore
constantly being shaped by as well as shaping other discourses through political,
economic and cultural conflict dialogue or struggle. For example, in a discourse
theoretical perspective, the construction of ‘air pollution in South Durban’ is not just a
matter of the amount of sulphur dioxide in the air. As a social reality it depends to a large
extent on media representations. Who is interpreting events and scientific evidence, and
how are they represented? What influences the journalists’ representation of them?
Critical discourse analysis
There are several approaches to critical discourse analysis, but generally what makes it
‘critical’ is the specific focus on the connection between language and the exercise of
power (Fairclough 1995: 54). In my analysis I draw selectively on Fairclough’s (1992,
1995) writings, and combine with van Dijk’s (1996) notion of ‘access’.
According to van Dijk (1996), ‘access’ is a fundamental and central dimension to the
discursive reproduction of power and dominance. Measuring the degree of access to the
media and media discourse is a way of measuring the power of social groups and their
members (van Dijk 1996: 86). In short, when analysing newspaper texts I am interested
in finding out who is speaking. Content analysis is one way of doing this. Discourse
analysis takes it further and considers what topics are included in the representation of air
pollution and what referents of discourse in terms of vocabulary and grammatical features
are included or excluded.
I find Fairclough’s framework particularly useful in linking textual components to the
social level and to questions of power. Fairclough`s (1995) approach is built on a number
of methods, such as linguistic and sociolinguistic analysis, conversation analysis,
semiotic analysis, critical linguistics, social semiotics, cultural-generic analysis, as well
as van Dijk’s works on news discourse.
The important point for Fairclough (1995) is that language, and the discourses within it,
is a form of social practice or action, which is dialectically related to other forms of
action. That is, language use is socially shaped at the same time as it is socially shaping,
in Fairclough`s terms, socially constitutive (Fairclough 1995: 55). Language is at the
same time constitutive of social identities, social relations and systems of knowledge and
21
belief. Critical discourse analysis explores the tension between “the socially shaped and
socially constitutive” (Fairclough 1995: 55). According to Fairclough, “[c]hanges in
society and culture manifest themselves in all their tentativeness, incompleteness and
contradictory nature in the heterogeneous and shifting discursive practices of the media”
(Fairclough 1995: 52). In short, the method of discourse analysis, in the way it is applied
here, is an analytical tool to help systematise and understand environmental journalism as
a social practice.
Summary
Three main categories of theory are examined above: existing research on media and the
environment, theories of news, and discourse theory. Previous research on media and the
environment, mainly focusing on Western countries, shows that environmental news
production tends to confirm with standard news formula. The important exception is the
special focus on advocacy journalism, which is favoured by some environmental
journalists. From a journalistic perspective, news values are founded on a practical
perception of tools and norms required, where objectivity is the most established. Social
sciences provide an analytical, and often critical, approach to media and journalism,
seeing journalism as a cultural activity in broad terms. One possible route to arrive at the
latter type of insight is through discourse theory. For the purposes of this thesis,
Fairclough's (1992, 1995) and van Dijk's (1996) critical approaches are reviewed. In the
next chapter critical discourse analysis as a method is presented along with the
quantitative techniques applied in the analyses in the following chapters.
22
CHAPTER 3
METHODS
As already indicated, both quantitative and qualitative methods are used in the analysis.
The quantitative part involves a content analysis of all newspaper articles collected. The
qualitative section comprises a more detailed textual analysis, linked to sociocultural and
normative perspectives as well as previous research. The methods of analysis are outlined
in detail below. Firstly, however, the primary sources of the research, the data collection
and the sampling of material are described.
Data collection
The sources of primary data are 1) newspaper articles and 2) oral evidence from
interviews. From the newspaper articles both quantitative and qualitative data are
collected. The interviews were aimed at revealing the norms and views of journalists
involved in the coverage of South Durban, on journalism in general and environmental
journalism in particular.
Most interview questions are open-ended and designed to elicit open reflection around
my main topics. Main interview topics were questions of objectivity, with a focus on
advocacy journalism in relation to environmental reporting, use of sources, the relation
between development and the environment, and views on commercialisation. Three
interviews of an average duration of about 45 minutes were conducted in the newsrooms
of The Mercury and Sunday Tribune at Independent Newspapers in Durban during
February and March 2001. The interviews were taped and transcribed. One interview was
conducted via e-mail with a respondent from Cape Town.
Sampling criteria
The interviewees were chosen on the basis of an examination of newspaper articles
finding out who had been involved in the coverage of air pollution in South Durban. The
interviewees were Veven Bisetty (The Mercury), Tony Carnie (The Mercury), Jill
Gowans (Sunday Tribune) and Melanie Peters (ex Daily News).
Through the library at Independent Newspapers, owners of The Mercury, Daily News,
and Sunday Tribune, I collected articles from the three newspapers from 1985, 1990,
23
1995 and 2000. The selection of these particular years is based on my hypothesis (see
page 5) that they represent critical phases in the changes that have occurred in South
Africa the last 15 years.
All articles searched from the categories ‘pollution: general’ and ‘pollution: air’. Articles,
which specifically include air pollution in South Durban, as a main or secondary topic,
were picked out. From 1985 only one article fits into this category, while I selected four
articles from 1990. In 1995, 12 articles were written on the topic, and 2000 left 58
articles. In total that is 75 articles.
Methods of analysis
Content analysis
Traditional content analysis is defined by Berelson (1952) as “a research technique for
the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of
communication” (cited in McQuail 1994: 276). According to McQuail (1994) this type of
basic content analysis is still the most widely used method of communications research.
Standing alone, content analysis has its weaknesses in that it only gives numeric insight.
The meaning is separated both from the original sender, the text itself as well as the
reader (McQuail 1994: 277). I see content analysis as a complementary approach to close
textual analysis and interviews.
The content analysis of newspaper articles in The Mercury, Daily News and Sunday
Tribune aims to indicate answers to four questions about the coverage of the environment
in South Durban: 1) How much coverage does the environment in South Durban get? 2)
What are the dominant sources? 3) To what extent is the reporting advice- or solutionoriented? 4) Is there a change with regard to these questions during the years analysed?
The actual numbers of articles counted and compared between the years 1985, 1990,
1995 and 2000 give an indication to the first question. Question two is operationalised
through the counting of the following categories, represented either in direct or indirect
quotes: Government (politicians and officials), experts, non-governmental groups and
organisations (NGO), business, and individual residents of South Durban. Experts
speaking on behalf of government are counted both in the expert and the government
categories. Experts speaking on behalf of non-governmental groups or organisations are
counted both in the expert and the NGO categories. With regards to question three,
24
articles containing an element of advice to the reader or solution to an environmental
problem, either directly from the journalist, or indirectly from sources, are counted. All
75 articles are part of the content analysis.
Critical discourse analysis
Fairclough (1995: 56) operates with two alternating and complementary approaches to
discourse analysis. The first focus is referred to as ‘communicative events’. These are, for
instance, a newspaper article or a TV-programme. Communicative events are again
divided into text, discourse practice and sociocultural practice. The second focus is
referred to as ‘the order of discourse’, which deals with how the actual discourses arise
from text, practice and sociocultural practice. The order of discourse of a social domain
or a community, for instance a medical institution, is made up of the discursive practices
used there.
Newspaper articles constitute communicative events (Fairclough 1995) that are analysed.
The focus will be directed at sociocultural practices in the form of news values,
professional codes and normative ideals. At this level, the analysis of environmental
journalism and its conventions are carried out through interpretations of the interviews
and analyses of texts.
Communicative events
a) Text
Fairclough (1995) operates with three complementary aspects in text analysis, taken from
Halliday (1978). Firstly, the interpersonal function refers to particular constructions of
writer and reader identities (status, roles, personality etc.) Secondly, the textual function
means a particular construction of the relationship between writer and reader (formal,
informal, close or distant, etc.) (Fairclough 1995: 58). Thirdly, the ideational function of
a text refers to particular representations of the world. In this project I am particularly
interested in the ideational function.
The reason for this choice is that I want to relate normative ideals and news values to
particular representations of the environment in South Durban. The central idea is that the
media does not just disseminate the reality of the world. Rather, the media construct a
reality dependent on a number of economic, cultural, and political factors. The media
25
may function hegemonically (see page 18), preserving dominant ideologies and power
relations through reproducing certain representations of reality. However, ideology is not
“a constant and predictable presence in all media discourse by definition” (Fairclough
1995: 47). My analysis is founded on the notion that the media also has the potential for
resistance and the means and material for counter-hegemonic struggles (Torfing 1999:
210-211).
Analysing the ideational function of texts linguistically can be carried out on several
levels, from the phonic to the macrostructural. Here the emphasis is on the lexical and the
grammatical, analysing vocabulary, metaphors, clauses (a clause is a linguistically simple
sentence), presupposition (explained below) and aspects of narrative. The ideational
function of representations can, in Fairclough’s terminology, be separated into looking at
(1) the structuring of, and (2) the sequencing of clauses.
Structuring of clauses
(Fairclough 1995: 104) deals with the representation of events and relationships between
participants. The focus questions are: How is the clause structured? Why is it structured
the way it is? To understand the sequencing of clauses basically means to analyse how
clauses are arranged and combined into sentences. The question is what precedes or
follows what, and why?
Another central part of analysis is presupposition (Fairclough 1995: 106). Presences and
absences are equally revealing. Just as important as what elements are present an
analysed text is what is not there, and what is presupposed (implicit meanings). A typical
example is the event-orientation in news, leading to an absence of historical context. The
latter is, as I have shown, thoroughly documented in research on environmental
journalism. Fairclough distinguishes between degrees of presence. Something can be
absent, it can be presupposed, or as discussed above, it can be backgrounded or
foregrounded in the structuring of clauses. Presupposition can, in line with hegemony
theory (see page 18), portray certain realities as convincing or ‘commonsensial’ and thus
have a potential ideological function (Fairclough 1995: 109).
26
b) Discourse practice
Discourse practice has to do with processes of text production and text consumption,
which are crucial in the formation of a communicative event. In this project the analysis
is concentrated on production. The discourse practice is the link between the actual text
and sociocultural practice (see below). Fairclough (1995) distinguishes between two main
types of discourse practice, creative and conventional. Creative discourse practice is
expectedly rather complex, involving a mix of different sorts of language, genres and
discourses available within the order of discourse. In other words, creative discourse
practice involves heterogeneous texts. A conventional discourse practice is generally
homogeneous in form and meaning. Creative discourse practices are framed by unstable
and shifting sociocultural practices, while conventional discourse practices are connected
to more stable conditions. According to Fairclough (1995) heterogenic texts and creative
discourse practices can be seen as “materialization of social and cultural contradictions”
and reflections of social change (1995: 60).
A central feature, tied to creative discourse practice, is intertextuality. Intertextuality
refers to the combination of genres and discourses. Intertextual complexity corresponds
to linguistic heterogeneity. I apply intertextual analysis to complement the linguistic
analysis. While linguistic analysis is descriptive, intertextual analysis is more
interpretative (Fairclough 1995: 61), and is thus important in order to relate the discourse
analysis to social realities. Intertextual analysis draws from the findings of the linguistic
analysis. On the basis of structuring and sequencing of clauses, for instance, the analysis
can identify genres, discourses and discourse types in a text. The term discourse type
helps distinguish genre from discourse. Genre refers to the way language is used, for
instance in terms of style. Discourse is the way a particular social practice or domain is
constructed (Fairclough 1995: 6). Discourse types are identified through genres (generic
analysis), but a discourse type can draw upon different genres.
c) Sociocultural practice
While text analysis is concerned with the text itself, discourse practice deals with the
production (or consumption) of the text through institutional- and discourse processes.
Sociocultural practice refers to the wider economic, political and cultural systems and
values that underpin discourse practice, and in turn text. Analysis of sociocultural
practice can relate to different levels of abstraction from the text, from the situational
27
context to the wider perspective of society (Fairclough 1995: 62). Here I operate quite
removed from the event, using theories of news, normative theories of journalism, and
previous research on environmental journalism. My own empirical investigations through
interviews with journalists, which will be tied up to the latter, are closer to the event and
borders with discourse practice.
The order of discourse
The order of discourse of a social domain is constituted by all the different discursive
types which are present (Fairclough 1995: 55). The idea behind the term ‘order of
discourse’ is to emphasise the relationships between discourse types, how they are
combined or not combined. It is equally important to analyse the relationships between
different orders of discourse. The investigation of the relationships between different
orders of discourse is crucial in relating the overall analysis to the realities of the social
world. “Social and cultural changes very often manifest themselves discursively through
a redrawing of boundaries within and between orders of discourse” (Fairclough 1995:
56).
Summary
The research builds on both qualitative data from interviews with selected journalists and
from newspaper articles, providing both quantitative and qualitative information. With
regards to methods of analysis, traditional content analysis of newspaper articles is used
for the quantitative part. The newspaper articles are treated qualitatively with the use of
critical discourse analysis. This analysis forms important background for the
interpretation of the interviews.
28
CHAPTER 4
CONTENT ANALYSIS
A quick inspection of headlines of articles in The Independent Newspapers archives
showed that stories of pollution have filled newspaper columns in Durban newspapers for
decades. The intention of my content analysis is to quantitatively indicate changes of
representation of air pollution in South Durban by specifically examining the mention of
sources in articles from 1985, 1990, 1995 and 2000. Fewer articles than expected
matched my classification (see Chapter 2). Only one article from 1985 fitted my
category, four articles from 1990. 12 articles from 1995 and 58 articles from 2000 were
collected. Thus, when investigating the quantitative representation of sources I have
concentrated on 1995 and 2000.
Direct and indirect quotes are practical indicators of representation of sources, providing
countable categories. This way of analysing text, doing traditional content analysis, gives
a fairly good indication of general tendencies of who is represented. How sources and the
world in general are represented, or how the journalist uses language and form within the
framework of the social, cultural and political conventions she or he operates within, is
left to the critical discourse analysis in the next two chapters.
Democracy puts South Durban on the map
The number of articles from the selected years makes interesting information in itself.
The environmental issue of air pollution in South Durban was virtually a dead topic in the
Durban press in the period when media coverage of the environment reached its height
internationally from the second half of the 1980s (see page 1). When coverage of the
environment dropped internationally throughout the 1990s, the number of articles about
air pollution in South Durban increased. In other words, the amount of coverage given to
air pollution in South Durban seems to coincide with the erosion of the apartheid regime
and the transformation towards democracy in South Africa.
The press in Durban wrote almost nothing about air pollution in relation to the
predominantly black South Durban in 1985, the year of the first state of emergency
declared in the 1980s, when there was intensified government censorship (Tomaselli &
Louw 1991: 77). I have found that the tendency was the same throughout the second half
29
of the 1980s, with only five articles being printed from 1986 to 1989. More attention was
given in 1990, the year of Mandela’s release and the unbanning of oppositional political
organisations. There was a significant growth in 1995, a year after the first democratic
election. Six years into democracy, air pollution in South Durban was given extensive
coverage. This is clearly visualised in figure 1, showing how many articles where printed
in each of the years investigated.
Figure 1: The development of newspaper coverage of South Durban
Number of articles
Articles printed
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1985
1990
1995
2000
Years
The special political context of South Africa is a primary reason for this development.
Firstly, according to Parlor and Schatzow’s (1978) findings (see page 8), the environment
is less likely to get coverage when other pressing issues compete for the agenda.
Increased media attention seems to come with relative political stability and economic
growth. The situation in South Africa at the time was quite the opposite. Secondly, there
is a traditional dependency on elite sources in news (Galtung and Ruge 1965).
Considering who was the elite in apartheid South Africa, alternative black voices of
South Durban would be less likely to be heard in the mainstream media, even those who
were not officially banned. “Under apartheid, most media unashamedly serviced white
audiences and interests” (Berger 2000b: 9), and the 1980s saw a declining coverage of
black issues in the English [South African] Press (Pinnock 1991: 138). Radical changes
in the social and political construction of the environment depend on alternative voices
(Hansen 1990).
30
The political changes that took place in the 1990s, especially from 1994 up until the
present, aimed to eliminate the systematic racial exclusion of the majority of the
population and ending repression of politically oppositional voices. There is thus a
relationship between these changes and the increased number of articles dealing with
pollution in South Durban. President Mandela’s response to demonstrators from the
Wentworth/Merebank area, who protested against pollution during his opening of a new
plant at the Engen refinery in 1995 is an illustrative example. This event, covered by the
media, led Mandela to initiate a meeting on environmental management with top
representatives from government and business as well as local community organisations
(Daily News 05.05.95).
Enter residents and NGOs
Much of the research outlined in Chapter 3 documents a heavy reliance on bureaucratic
and government sources in environmental news (Dunwoody and Griffin 1993, Einsiedel
and Coughlan 1993, Cottle 1993, Sandman et al 1987). As can be seen in figure 2 and
figure 3, my content analysis confirms this trend.
Figure 2: Sources represented in 1995 measured in percentage
Sources represented 1995
Percentage
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
individual
residents
experts
government
31
Figure 3: Sources represented in 2000 measured in percentage
Sources represented 2000
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
individual
residents
experts
government
In 2000 almost one third of the sources quoted directly or indirectly were government
representatives (officials or politicians), while in 1995 close to half of the sources
belonged to the government category.
However, the most interesting result from this part of the content analysis is the high
representation of individual residents and NGOs. Counting the figures for the ‘NGO’ and
‘Individual residents’ categories together, they constituted a dominant source, in 2000
even more dominant than government. More than one third of the sources were either
from NGOs or individual residents, with the overall majority of that one third being
individual residents (23 per cent). Individual residents isolated, illustrated in figure 2 and
3, were quoted at the same frequency as business representatives in both 1995 and 2000.
In 1995, in addition to government, NGOs were particularly important. 22 per cent of the
sources quoted were NGOs, while one in ten were from business.
Knowing that environmental pressure groups have generally developed close ties with the
media (Cracknell 1993), the significant representation of NGOs is perhaps not so
surprising. The high incidence of individual residents quoted, especially in the 2000
material, can be interpreted as part of the same picture. NGOs are important in promoting
resident’s voices, and many members of NGOs are at the same time residents of South
Durban.7
7
In my study community based organisations are included in the NGO category.
32
None of the articles from 1995 include any kind of advice or solution to the
environmental problems reported, neither those from 1990 or 1985. In 2000 three articles
contained such features.
Summary
In brief, it is evident from the content analysis that coverage has, in terms of the number
of articles written, gone from being close to non-existent to becoming relatively
significant. Moreover, residents and NGOs have become dominant sources in the 1990s.
The next chapter aims at building on these quantitative findings and explore qualitative
changes.
33
CHAPTER 5
THE DISCOURSE OF AIR POLLUTION
Conflict and change
Going through the articles written in Daily News, Sunday Tribune and The Mercury about
air pollution in South Durban during the last 15 years, after reading the coverage of 2000,
one quite quickly gets a sense of déjà vu. First of all the environmental situation in South
Durban has not improved, if not worsened during that period. On the face of it the issues
seem to be fairly static recycled in news reports sometimes strikingly similar from one
year to the next. Residents of South Durban, worried about their health, complain about
excessive pollution in their neighbourhood, the polluting industries deny responsibility
for health hazards, government comments more or less bureaucratically that things need
to be done, and so on. This is the general pattern. The participants are largely the same,
and they seem to say much of the same all along.
Beyond the face of it, analysis reveals that there is actually a change in the way Durban
newspapers represent air pollution in South Durban. The change is evident in the way
news discourse incorporates other discourses used by participants in news articles, and
how participants again appear to alter their discourse along with this development. There
is a restructuring of the order of discourse of air pollution in South Durban. In other
words, the framework for what can be said and done is being reformed, and discourses
available in the construction of the environmental reality of South Durban are being
altered.
Change can be seen as a product of conflict and struggle. The coverage of air pollution in
South Durban revolves around a conflict between residents (often represented through
NGOs) and industry. Government resides somewhere in between in the sense that both
sides work to get the government (on all levels) on their side. Formulated in social terms,
there is a struggle over the environmental reality of South Durban. This is a discursive
struggle, which is going on in the columns of the newspapers. More specifically, this
struggle is about what can be said and how the situation is defined, which influences
relations of power, and in turn possibilities of acting on the environmental situation.
34
The main conclusion of my analysis is that this struggle moves towards a gradual shift
from a dominant industry and ignorant government towards more (em)powered residents,
which according to critical discourse analysis has the potential to translate into social
power.
The change is particularly evident in 2000. An investigative journalism series in The
Mercury by environmental journalist Tony Carnie on the relation between blood cancer
and air pollution constitutes a large part of that year’s extensive coverage.8 This series
reflects particularly interesting changes in discourse, and I therefore go more into detail
on some examples from this year than from the others. In general, it should be noted that
most of what is written about air pollution in South Durban is written by the same Carnie.
The analysis is divided into three main parts. The first focus is on who has access and
how the ‘participants’ are given access, or being represented in discourse. The question is
broadly: Who is speaking? The analysis is mainly centred around three participants, or
voices, which are particularly relevant to the development I want to illustrate:
Residents/NGOs (the two fight for the same goals and are closely related),
business/industry and the reporter’s voice itself. Government is an important participant
as well. Secondly, I ask ‘What are they saying?’ This part investigates the actual content,
identifying topics and how they are manifested in language and discourse. 9
WHO IS SPEAKING?
The absence of residents
As pointed out in the previous chapter, coverage of air pollution in South Durban was
scarce during the eighties, and the coverage of ‘black issues’ declined. In the one article
from 1985, “Motorist alerts factory over escape of chlorine gas” (The Mercury 7 June
1985, see app. 11) is certainly not concerned with the (black) victims of air pollution.
There are no residents of South Durban present at all, even if the event the report builds
on is a chlorine gas leak from a factory in the area. As far as the environmental situation
in South Durban is concerned, it is relatively obvious how the absence of residents’
voices leaves those responsible for the leak with no challenge.
8
9
Tony Carnie was awarded the CNN African Journalist of the Year Award 2000 (health category) for his series.
All articles referred to in the analysis can be found in the appendix.
35
The news focus is instead on a passing by motorist who saw the gas cloud and alerted the
factory, followed by comment from the factory and from local government. The headline
tones down the factory and the factory management as actors and the actual pollutant,
chlorine gas. Instead of possible headlines saying for instance “Chlorine gas escapes from
factory”, or “Factory leaks chlorine gas” the existing headline makes the motorist the
actor. The pollutant and the responsible factory are put in the background. “Pollution” is
mentioned once by the factory manager who is aware of the leak, and does not “think we
are exceeding the pollution limits”.
Representing residents: From margin to centre
As opposed to the one sample from 1985, both in 1990, 1995 and 2000 residents of South
Durban are the most frequently foregrounded voices in the articles available, which
confirms well with the quantitative findings from the content analysis. Residents tend to
be the initiators or focus of newsworthy events, evident in many typical headlines:
“Merebank residents call for official probe into pollution” (Sunday Tribune 9 September
1990, see app. 13), “Residents fed up with pollution” (Daily News 24 October 1995, see
app. 16), “Angry Bluff residents want an explanation for pungent smell” (Sunday Tribune
23 January 2000, see app. 18). Six out of twelve articles from 1995 either have ‘residents’
or ‘community members’ as the first word(s) of the title or lead text.
This frequency does not automatically mean that their voices appear with authority or
legitimacy. In one example from 1990, “Council is determined to get polluters taped”
(Sunday Tribune 30 September 1990, see app. 12), the focus is an interview with the local
town council (which I here consider a representative of the community/residents), but the
central point to the story is not the environment or pollution in itself. Instead the story is
constructed around the fact that the council is buying a video camera to tape polluters,
and the council’s voice loses much of its potential force because this incident is made a
humorous curiosity, stealing attention from the real issues. For instance, the council is
asked if the equipment will be used for spying, where he answers, that “that’s a good idea
as well”.
The degree of legitimacy to reported speech not only depends on the type of discourse the
reported participants use themselves, but also the type of discourse they are embedded
within. News discourse in the samples from 1990 tends to be rather neutral in tone with
36
the reporter’s voice kept in the background. In 1995 the reporter takes on a more
interpretative role in some articles providing descriptions of an established reality as
opposed to reported claims about an environmental reality in South Durban. The region is
no longer so much claimed by someone to be, but is “heavily polluted” (The Mercury 17
October 1995, see app. 14). Community members from South Durban “have had to
endure heavy pollution for far too long” (Daily News 19 October 1995). In short, air
pollution seems to be firmly established as a fact and an issue by the mid-nineties,
whereas in the early 1990s it was more contested. Within the new setting the resident’s
voices appear as justified. There is a different pattern of access, in van Dijk (1996) terms,
or with Fairclough’s (1995) concepts, a change in the ideational functions of the texts.
Furthermore, an increasingly emotive and metaphorically loaded vocabulary (see next
section) among the residents’ voices is sometimes paralleled in reporter’s voices, for
example in headlines such as “Residents fed up… (as opposed to “…residents call for
probe…”), “Smog causes outcry” (The Mercury 18 December 1995, see app. 17) and
“Irate residents seek pollution study” ( The Mercury 17 October 1995, see app. 14). From
this combination of voices emerges a construction of pollution in South Durban closer to
the view of the residents’ version of reality, which I will show continues and increases in
the 2000 coverage. Firstly, I will analyse two news stories from 1990 and 1995, which
illustrate the shift from a dismissed to a more legitimate voice of residents.
The article “Merebank residents call for official probe into pollution”, (Sunday Tribune, 9
September 1990, see app. 13), reflects the emerging struggle over the reality of the
environment in South Durban and the causes of health problems in the area. The
participants are the residents and government representatives, and as the title indicates the
article is angled towards the residents. Still, it is difficult not to read the article as
government being the authoritative participant.
One explanation is to be found in the homogenous character of the article, which is
founded on a classically objectivity-oriented type of news discourse. All paragraphs
quote sources directly and lack any intervention or interpretation from the reporter. The
government officials quoted draw on the same type of ‘objective’ discourse as the article
does, and they are allowed to appear as consistent, using vocabulary evoking a scientific
bureaucratic discourse: “…an official investigation of Merebank doctor’s medical records
37
disclosed there was no higher incidence of disease compared with…” How Merebank
residents actually have expressed themselves is impossible to know, since there are no
direct quotes. However, in the one indirect quote the community representative is quoted
in a formal style (Sunday Tribune, 9 September 1990, see app. 13).
As long as this struggle over environmental reality in South Durban is confined within a
discourse of science and ‘objective’ rationality, government officials have an easy job
discrediting any assertion from residents. Residents can claim, but when “head of the
City Engineer’s pollution control department” claims the opposite, and “Dr Roberts of
the City Health Department” dismisses the resident’s surveys as “completely
unscientific”, there is no doubt whose voice is the most credible.
In “Residents fed up with pollution” (Daily News 24 October 1995, see app. 16) the event
producing the story is similar. Residents are calling for investigations into health
problems caused by pollution in the area, but in this article their claims appear as both
forceful and fully legitimate. The reason is that they are given another form of access in
the article, where, as explained above, the presence of the reporter’s voice and her type of
language harmonises more with residents’ version than government’s voices. Still within
a fairly standard news format, the article is not dominated by scientific-bureaucratic
discourse, but is instead dealing with a residential area, which is ‘surrounded by hordes of
industries which cause the pollution’.
It should be mentioned that NGOs in some cases are difficult to separate from residents’
voices, since they are there mainly to represent residents’ voices. The content analysis
showed that NGOs are important in their own respect, but residents and NGOs counted
together become a major participant. NGOs seem to be important as agenda-setters. A lot
of the events covered by the newspapers are initiated by NGOs.
Many of the articles from 2000 follow familiar patterns of objectified news discourse,
quoting two conflicting views without much interpretation. However, the overall
impression is that the reporter’s voice becomes strikingly more present, controlling
access, not so much by who gets to speak, but by how they get to speak. Different
identities emerge, rearranging power distribution between the different discourse types generally in favour of resident’s discourses.
38
Representing business: The reporter as interpreter
As indicated by the content analysis, industry/business is a weighty voice, both in 1995
and 2000. In 2000 industry tends increasingly to be depicted through a representation
more or less actively designed by the reporter. Three stories from 2000, dealing with the
same event, illustrate this. The stories are about the Sapref oil refinery, which has
admitted that it has been underreporting its emissions to the atmosphere for years. While
one of the articles (“Oil giant got its sums wrong”, Sunday Tribune 30 January 2000, see
app. 19) lets the Sapref director speak unchallenged, drawing on a customary authorityclaiming scientific-bureaucratic discourse, the two other stories introduce a more
complex news discourse.
In the first story, “Sapref congratulated for honesty” (Daily News, 1 February 2000, see
app. 21) quotes the same director similarly at times, but as the headline indicates, the
story has another angle, playing actively on a paradox emphasised by the reporter. The
first sentence of the article states ironically and somewhat sarcastically: “Honesty really
is the best”, while the underlying text is that the company has actually been dishonest, but
local government has congratulated the company for (finally) telling the truth. The
managing director “was forced to confess what local residents had long charged”: that
they have not reported the truth about how much “noxious sulphur dioxide it had been
pumping into the atmosphere”. The participants in the story are no longer only accessed
and represented through their own discourses. They are modified by the reporter who
uses irony and interpretes the event, applying informal language.
In the third article (“Firm made big ‘mistake’ with air pollution count”, The Mercury 1
February 2000, see app. 20) the reporter’s interpretative voice creates an even more
critical representation of the oil refinery. It did not just “get its sums wrong” as it goes in
the headline of the Sunday Tribune-story. Instead, the “Firm made big ‘mistake’ with air
pollution count”. In addition, it is not only the rather anonymous concept of an “oil
refinery” that is held responsible, but the “Managers of Southern Africa’s largest oil
refinery…”, are foregrounded as key actors in the first sentence of the article. On the one
hand the article communicates a degree of doubt if the underreporting in fact was a
mistake, by consistently using quotation marks on ‘mistake’. This is of course perfectly
natural within a news setting, since it is actually the word the manager uses. However,
39
stressing exactly their version of what happened in this way has at the same time the
effect of alerting the reader that it is just that, one version of it, and in the extension of
that the question is, is this the truth? On the other hand the reporter includes description
and interpretation, contextualising what the managers say. The ‘mistake’ is a “major
embarrassment for the company”. The following clause explains another less visible
aspect: “However, the effect of the admission could also benefit Shell and BP
financially”.
There are naturally exceptions to the tendency of the reporter’s increased intervention in
the representation of business/industry. “The right to reply”, (The Mercury, 14 September
2000, see app. 9) part of Tony Carnie’s investigative series (11 to 14 September 2000) on
the relation between air pollution and blood cancer, is a good example. It is largely built
around direct quotes of company managers who then get the opportunity to facilitate their
own representation, even if the reporter a few times supplies the reader with factual
information contradicting their statements. The article is marked by a technicalbureaucratic discourse with long sentences and passive constructions. Implicitly the
directors accuse the public for irrationality and the press for sensationalism.
“Communities must not be worried by sensationalism that has no scientific basis”. This
type of language might appear as convincing in itself. It is, however, less so within the
context of the series as a whole, which by the time this article was printed had largely
focused on residents. The industry’s statements are by now situated within a wider
discourse created by other articles in the series.
The explicit interpretative, descriptive and evaluating voice of the reporter is the most
striking characteristic of many of the articles from the Carnie’s series. In an article about
the lack of cancer statistics for South Durban in the national cancer registry, (“Lots of
race records – but no place records”, The Mercury 12 September 2000) the article
concludes on a report: “They don’t seem to have the faintest clue”. The same article also
devises a closer interpersonal relationship between writer and reader when the reporter
speaks more or less directly to the reader: “…it (the cancer registry) can tell you how
many…”10
10
My italics
40
Representing air pollution as disease: The reporter as storyteller
Another textual feature, which makes Carnie’s series on cancer and air pollution different
from the rest of the coverage of air pollution in South Durban, is that in some texts the
reporter becomes a direct participant in the story. Instead of the ‘objective’ third person
(he, she, it), a subjective first person, in the form of ‘I’, emerges, telling the story about
destinies rather than hard facts. Generally there is a tendency that several different
discourse types go together in these texts and articulate a reality based on a combination
of emotionally loaded individual stories personally framed by the reporter’s voice, as
well as factual expert opinion and information. Here the construction of air pollution in
South Durban is not based on competing claims confined within the frames of an
objectifying news discourse. One of the first stories in the air pollution-cancer series is a
particularly pertinent example and I will therefore examine that article in some detail
below.
In “Agony of the children” (The Mercury 11 September 9, 2000, see app. 3) the general
focus is on residents in the South Durban region, portrayed as victims of pollution. The
story lacks the typical event-focus of the news genre and is instead concentrated on a
phenomenon; the high incidence of cancer in South Durban and the possible link to air
pollution.
A dominant part of the text are lists of people at the Bluff and in Wentworth, many of
them children, who have died or are fatally ill from cancer. Relatives are represented
through their stories about cancer among family members, neighbours and friends; stories
summarised by the reporter as well as told through direct quotes. As indicated in the
headline, the text is particularly centred on children as victims of cancer, adding an
emotional value. Children are thought of as innocent, they are defenceless and they
represent the future. Moreover, the headline is structured as a genitive, forefronting
‘agony’ instead of children. This gives he title a more expressive effect, amplifying the
tragedy of children dying.
The reporter places himself as an actor in the text. “I don’t pretend…” He describes
himself as an investigative journalist. A storytelling type of narrative and the use of an
emotionally loaded language and a vocabulary taken from a discourse of everyday life
41
and experience11 emphasise this role and creates an impression of a detective in a novel,
gradually unravelling the pieces of the puzzle. Several sentences contain clauses like
“…this is the story I would like to tell you…”, “She told me this story around the time
that…”, and “Later I discovered that…”. The narrative and the reporter as participant
establish a relatively close relationship between reader and writer. This might raise the
credibility of the writer and the text in the eyes of the reader.
However, intimacy between writer and reader is not enough for a text to be seen as
credible as piece of information within news discourse. Hence, the text provides some
context in the form of pure factual information and observation, where news discourse is
mixed with the subjective voice of the reporter within sentences. “Later I discovered that
every year, nearly 3700 tons of “product” [toxic petroleum and carcinogenic chemicals]
leaks into the air, ground or water surrounding the 970 tanks at the Island View tanker
farm”. Similarly, the list of cancer casualties presents hard facts in a telegram-type of
language.
Given the readers’ potential knowledge of the topic gathered from other texts (and for
some from their daily lives), the source of the dangerous pollution could easily have been
taken for granted or presupposed and left out of the text. Instead it is highlighted in the
third sentence, if backgrounded in the actual clause: “…the Merebank children are
surrounded on three sides by major polluters – Sapref, Engen, Mondi and the busy South
Coast freeway”. As this passage illustrates, not only residents in general, but children in
particular, are foregrounded. The text focus remains on the affected victims, but cause
and effect is also effectively juxtaposed: A mother of a child who died from cancer is
quoted as saying: “…it was the pollution at the Bluff that killed her.”
By focusing on victims and their experiences, by diminishing neutral news jargon, in
short by being a participative storyteller more than a non-participative reporter, the
journalist makes air pollution an issue of disease and death rather than medical facts and
statistics. A journalist taking on the role as a storyteller, might have a bigger chance of
communicating this sort of human experience, and thus engage readers, than a traditional
‘objective’ news reporter. Moreover, by engaging readers to identify with universal
11
In other words, from what we normally refer to as private life, or the private sphere.
42
traumas of death an disease a potential for moving public opinion is created, and thus a
potential for change.
WHAT ARE THEY SAYING?
Which topics feature in the articles? Due to my selection criteria, all articles are
necessarily focused on air pollution in one way or the other. This topic has again a wide
range of possible sub-topics as already indicated above.
Air pollution as a health topic
Not surprisingly, health is highlighted as a central aspect about air pollution all along,
with the exception of the article from 1985 where it is not a topic at all. There are three
important observations that should be highlighted with regard to the health topic. Firstly,
in 1990 and 1995 ‘health’ is mentioned frequently, but it hardly gets any more specific
than that. What type of health problems, what they actually consist of or how serious they
are, is generally not on the agenda. ‘Health’ either appears as a more or less presupposed
consequence of air pollution, or residents bring it up: “I fear to think of what effect it had
on our lungs” (‘Residents complain about Engen fall-out’, Daily News 24 October 1995,
see app. 15). Secondly, when the health issue surfaces, it is often in connection with
government or industry discarding any chance of health problems due to air pollution.
There is a change in 1995 where government seems to accept the need for assessment.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the health topic becomes both much more pressing and
specific in 2000. Briefly put, the coverage of the environment in South Durban has
moved from what we may call a ‘green’ issue to largely become a ‘brown’ issue.
Primarily, it is again Carnie’s series in 2000 that expands the topic. For the first time
specific life-threatening diseases, mainly cancer, become legitimate topics in relation to
air pollution. This is clearly reflected in vocabulary. Air pollution is more than affecting
health, it is potentially “killing children” (“Is it the air they breathe?” The Mercury 11
September 2000). Partly the medical and scientific side of the health topic is at the centre
of attention, partly it is a matter of individual human beings and their stories of pain and
suffering. Sickness mediated in a medical and scientific discourse type adds to the
knowledge base, but still, based on former coverage, within a relatively established form.
The resident’s stories, on the other hand, add new ways of representing the health topic.
43
As pointed out in the previous section, this type of discourse is manifested in how the text
is structured as well as in which words are chosen and used.
In two texts published on the same day (“Can air pollution cause cancer?”, “Are some
more vulnerable than others”, The Mercury 12 September, 2000, see app. 5 and 6) the
findings from several international medical studies on the relation between air pollution
and serious lethal diseases are highlighted. The reporting relies on a scientific discourse
type using technical vocabulary: “…the average person takes about 20 000 breaths a day,
processing it at a rate of about nine litres a minute”, “Professor Knox also found a strong
correlation…”. In the same articles, however, health is switched into an issue involving
personal tragedies. The reporter describes a teenager diagnosed with the deadly disease
SLE, using expressive language rich in adjectives. She is described as a “plucky little
teenager”, and “she smiled bravely”. But “she walks like an old woman”.
A quote from the article analysed in the previous section shows how the expressive and
emotional potential of the discourse of everyday life and experiences constructs an
intimate as opposed to clinical version of South Durban environmental reality. Mrs
Eileen Chapple, a woman who lost her 14-year old daughter from leukaemia says: “Lisa
was so lovely. But it took her just five weeks to die”. “I used to be strong, but I am a
broken woman now”. The memory of her daughter “tears her soul”.
Air pollution as law and human rights
Several other new topics turn up in the 2000 coverage. For example, the legality of air
pollution becomes an issue. Some articles contain elements of judicial discourse as well
as human rights discourse. Some articles are concerned with the possibility of tighter
legislation on air pollution and stricter reactions to offences (“Polluters will pay up” 14
February, “Oil refineries to face scrutiny”, “Fuel giants face little more than a slap on the
wrist”, all from The Mercury 2000 (see app 23 and 22). Another article (from the air
pollution-cancer series) reports that “Consultants, attorneys and fund-raisers are lining
up…to launch legal class actions against major polluters”. (“Moosa silent over pollution
outcry” The Mercury 13 September 2000, see app. 7). In the same article a politician is
talking about the protection of “the rights of people”.
44
The focus on rights is strongly articulated in an article reporting on a politician’s speech
at a conference (“ANC MP slams oil company abuse”, The Mercury 31 July 2000, see
app. 2). Air pollution is being linked to fundamental constitutional rights in the
perspective of “multinational oil companies” plans of expansion in South Durban. The
language is much more powerful, drawing on discourses of human rights and antiimperialism: “Ms Mahlangu said she was concerned that several oil companies operating
in South Africa had been linked to human rights abuses or civil war”. Further there is
mention of “poor communities” and the need to develop strategies against countries and
companies that “continue to harm people due to financial greed and for cheap energy”.
Also the national environment minister links air pollution, (but not companies) to the
“fundamental human right” of a healthy environment. In another article the national
environment minister demands a healthy environment (“Moosa demands action over
pollution”, The Mercury 20 September 2000, see app. 10).
The changing discourse of government and business
The latter example is illustrative of how air pollution increasingly emerges as an accepted
political and social topic. The content analysis showed that government sources were
dominant through all the years examined, but it is evident that what they are saying is
different in 2000 from the other years. Also there are fewer officials, and more politicians
represented. Politicians appear to use a wider variety of discourses in parallel with a more
complex news discourse. The growing use of ‘grassroot-centred’ discourses, such as
those pointed out above, might be a reflection of the shift towards the empowering of
residents’ discourse that I have argued takes place.
There are even signs that business adapts its language to this picture, where residents
generally and children specifically have become the focus of news discourse. “Engen
employees living in the area are concerned about their children’s health’”, says a
representative of Engen (“We’ve had enough” Sunday Tribune 24 September 2000, see
app. 11). The director of the other refinery, Sapref, remarks: “I have children of my own”
(“Refinery bosses apologise for pollution”, The Mercury 2000).
Vocabulary: From neutral to expressive
As indicated above in the way disease is spoken about, a crucial observation with regards
to vocabulary is that it is becoming more expressive, in the sense that it is becoming less
45
neutral and literal and increasingly loaded and expressive. The frequent use of metaphors
is one such element. This is visible in 1995 and obvious in 2000, not only with regard to
the health topic. The interesting aspect is that this vocabulary is increasingly integrated
into news discourse, into the reporter’s voice. As already pointed out, this tendency is
closely related to residents’ voices becoming weightier. By naturalising this type of
discourse, the news also legitimises a certain way of constructing air pollution in South
Durban.
In 1995 “outraged” or “angry” residents are quoted claiming, for example that “They [the
refineries] are pumping poison into the neighbourhood” (‘‘Smog’ causes outcry”, The
Mercury 18 December 1995, see app. 17). However, these characterisations mostly
remain in quotation marks. In 2000 on the other hand, this type of vocabulary is
integrated into the reporter’s voice, in some stories. For instance, one article asks: “What
about the nastier stuff” from, “South Durban’s ‘myriad of... industries?” And further
down: “Community spokesmen tore their hair out in frustration” (“How bad is the
pollution - and who controls the polluters”, The Mercury 13 September 2000, app. 8).
The industry in South Durban is in one story described as a “dirty dozen” (“New gadget
joins fight against dirty air”, The Mercury 17 May 2000, see app. 24). The same article
takes on a discourse of war to describe the work of an American NGO using ‘bucket’device to measure air pollution. Residents in polluted neighbourhoods “are getting a
novel weapon for their battle against air pollution” and communities in America are also
“armed” with this device.
The latter is of course not to say that the coverage of South Durban becomes all
expressive and metaphorical. Still a ‘neutral’ language is largely the norm. The point is
that there is a greater mix in vocabulary, just as there is a mix between subjective and
objectified voices, as illustrated in the previous section. This picture emanates within the
frames of an expanding range of topics broadening the construction of air pollution in
South Durban.
Summary
In sum, an increasingly complex news discourse creates a correspondingly complex
construction of South Durban as an environmental issue, where residents emerge as
increasingly potent participants. This is evident in the change in topics where the
46
pollution in South Durban emerges as a health issue. Also, there is a change of style and
vocabulary moving the articles from traditional 'objectifying' news discourse to instead
include discourses of everyday life and realities, thus favouring residents' voices over
formerly dominant business and government. This is particularly evident in 2000.
47
CHAPTER 6
THE PRACTICE OF ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALISM
Why are they saying it?
The questions raised in the previous chapter were ‘Who is speaking? and ‘What are they
saying?’ The next question is: ‘Why are they saying it?’ In this regard South Africa’s
current process of shaking off its apartheid legacies and establishing a democratic society
is crucial. True transformation is dependent upon change in a range of sectors, including
the media on all its levels. To what extent change or transformation in the media has
actually occurred in the years since 1994 is hotly debated. There is no doubt that,
compared to the pre-1994 situation, substantial changes have taken place both in terms of
ownership of the press and in terms of staffing.12 To what extent this amounts to a
“mammoth change” (Berger 2000b: 30) depends of course on what is regarded as
reasonable, realistic and achievable within the given period of time.
The big question, which cannot be directly extracted from knowledge of ownership and
staffing, is whether content is changing as well. It has been suggested that “most South
African newspapers continue to report from a mainly white, privileged paradigm” (Fisher
2000), and that South African journalists and editors “still can’t respond to the question
of what is newsworthy in the new South Africa” (Boloka 2000). Others have concluded
that, “changes occurred in the content in the pages of print journalism” (Berger 2000b:
12). Still, there is no tangible empirical research available to back either claim.
My research provides some evidence of change in content. The previous chapters found
that the second half of the 1990s’coverage of air pollution in South Durban brought
several changes in who got to speak, in what they were saying, and how they were saying
it or allowed to say it. The analysis is not built directly around racial dimensions, which
has been central to media transformation13 and does not make any claims about racial
stereotyping for example. What it does claim is that there have been significant changes
12
Prior to 1994,,the South African print media were controlled by only four (white) groups. Argus Holdings Ltd
and Times Ltd controlled the English speaking press, while Peskor and Nasionale Pers held the Afrikaans press.
Today these conglomerates are broken up with the entrance of foreign ownership (Both The Mercury, Daily
News and Sunday Tribune are owned by Irish-based Independent Newspapers). Secondly, a number of
empowerment transformation initiatives have led to the inclusion of new and previously excluded black players
into the media business (Berger 2000b: 4). (See also Tomaselli 1997)
13
For instance, the Human Rights Commission’s (HRC) inquiry into racism in the media in 2000 stirred big
controversy and debate.
48
in the representation and increased coverage of air pollution in a ‘black area’ in the
period from the demise of apartheid up until present.
One important element in the changing news discourse was the increasingly active role of
the reporter in the newspaper stories. This chapter aims to interpret and discuss these
findings in terms of practice, that is, focusing on the practicioners. More specifically, I
will examine the journalistic side of the production of newspaper articles. I will on the
one hand examine aspects of discourse practice (see page 27), using interviews with
journalists strongly or partly involved in the coverage of air pollution in South Durban
and relate this to my findings in the previous chapter. On the other hand, I will tie the
analysis to levels of sociocultural practice (see page 27 and 28), thus linking aspects of
practice and production to structural components of journalism and society at large.
Discourse change and social, cultural and political change, are closely related.
According to Fairclough (1992: 80) processes of production are firstly constrained by
resources inherent in social structures, norms and conventions. Secondly, production is
constrained by the nature of the sociocultural practice it is part of, which decides what
resources are drawn upon, and how they are drawn upon.
Five main perspectives are singled out as focal entries of this chapter. These perspectives
are crucial in much previous research, and they are generally central to media and news
theory. They also served as a thematic basis for my interviews with the journalists. The
first section of the chapter deals with news values. The discussion is largely centred on
questions of objectivity and especially views on advocacy journalism in relation to
environmental reporting. The next section is about the use of sources, followed by a
section on the relations between developmental issues and environmental issues. The
tensions between democratisation and commercialisation in discourse are discussed in the
following section, examining the textual analysis both in relations to journalistic practice
and wider sociocultural factors. Finally, environmental journalism as investigative
journalism is critically approached in the light of Ettema and Glasser’s (1998) work on
investigative journalism.
The interviews are best to be understood as a generic background to journalism and news
production in Durban newspapers, with a special focus on environmental reporting and
49
reporting on air pollution in South Durban. One of the journalists interviewed, Tony
Carnie, has, as mentioned earlier, reported extensively on the issue. Carnie and Jill
Gowans) have the environment as their speciality beat.14 The other journalists have been
involved to a varying and lesser extent.
Objectivity or advocacy?
“I personally, over thirty years in journalism, am not all that screwed up by objectivity”.
(Jill Gowans, environmental reporter, in interview 2001)
“If anything in journalism you have to be objective first of all.”
(Veven Bisetty, political reporter, in interview 2001)
Objectivity is regarded as perhaps the most widely shared, and fundamental professional
criterion by journalists in general in most parts of the world (see page 16 and 17). From
the interviews it is very clear, however, that the journalists with environment as their beat
had quite different views on questions about objectivity and advocacy than the political
journalists. Bisetty sees objectivity as the fundamental journalistic criteria in the classical
sense and aims to be a neutral observer. So does Peters, a general reporter with
environmental interest. The environmental journalists on the other hand, at least Carnie,
want to see themselves as a “reflecting part of community...” (Carnie in interview 2001),
rather than as an ‘outside’ observer.
In a way Carnie and Gowans also ascribe to objectivity as a valuable goal. “There are two
sides of every story, and I think it’s important to reflect those (Carnie in interview 2001)
“Obviously one is trying to reflect a picture, you’re trying to reflect a holistic picture
(Gowans in interview 2001). However, the environmental journalists express scepticism
towards any categorical definition of objectivity. “I don’t really think you can be a
neutral observer... We all bring various interests and skills to the job. I am doing that
work because it is something that interests me as a hobby...” (Gowans in interview 2001).
Peters, a general reporter with special interest in the environment, is somewhere in
14
Tony Carnie is a chief reporter and environmental reporter with The Mercury. Jill Gowans is a reporter and
environmental reporter with The Sunday Tribune. Melanie Peters was a general reporter with the Daily News
from 1996 to 1998 and wrote on environmental topics, especially issues affecting the Durban South Community.
Veven Bissetty and Elijah Mhlanga are political reporters with The Mercury. The interview was initially set up
for Bisetty. Mhlanga joined during the interview and contributed constructively.
50
between. She sees herself as a neutral observer, but acknowledges that “journalists are
influenced by their own thoughts on the subject they are reporting on, the newspaper’s
stance, the news editor’s input... and there is also the issue of how one presents a story”
(Peters in interview 2001).
According to Carnie, the notion of objectivity has the potential of distorting rather than
revealing truth. This puts him in a rather radical position from a journalistic perspective,
lending some credibility to critical theory positions (see page 17 and 18) about the
linkage between news and ideology.
If you apply objectivity in a very narrow sense, you could say that there should be
equal space devoted to different sides of the argument. But my view is that if for
example a company is accused of polluting a river, and there is actually
overwhelming evidence from various sources that they did pollute that river... I
think it would be very foolish to carry one column of evidence saying ‘yes they
polluted this river’ and then to devote an equal space to the company to say ‘no we
didn’t pollute the river’... That isn’t objectivity at all; that’s propaganda. It’s more
like adversarial objectivity... Objectivity, I fear, can sometimes be used as a
method to tone down and repress true objectivity (Carnie in interview 2001).
At the same time as accepting a certain interpretation of objectivity, Carnie and Gowans
(fully aware of its controversial implications) say they are advocates for the environment.
Peters thinks that “advocacy journalism is instrumental in bringing about change and
influencing important decisions”, because “we have a responsibility to inform the public
about the impact and consequence we have on the environment (Interview 2001). Thus,
their understanding of objectivity does not exclude the possibility of advocacy. As in
Ryan’s (1991) defence of advocacy (see page 12), they do not reject the importance of
secure facts in reporting. It is rather about the attitude towards presenting and treating the
facts, and that that process can hardly be objective. Gowans explains with an example of
a story she wrote about the robbing turtle eggs in Maputaland. The thefts were connected
to rumours among the local population that turtle eggs can cure AIDS:
That [about aids cure rumours] is part of the mythology...one of the things we
have to look at.... I don’t think that I would have been objective...I mean, this is a
protected site, it’s world renowned, it’s a resource for tourism, it’s a resource for
local people as tourism... So in an example like that I think it is pretty much given
that you would be an advocate...(Interview 2001).
51
According to Carnie, advocacy can be a way of revealing ‘propaganda’ and escape
superficial routine adversarialism:
I don’t believe that advocacy journalism is slanted journalism. I think it is really
in many ways an attempt to debunk the propaganda, which is inherent in our
society, which becomes part of society and becomes part of accepted wisdom.
And there is a reluctance to actually challenge that and to look at the assumptions
which form that conventional wisdom. When you start asking hard-hitting
questions or threatening powerful interest groups, it’s very easy for them to say
‘oh this is an advocate of the environment’ and that there is this green bias. I don’t
think that is the case really, I think it’s just a very convenient way of trying to cast
dispersions on journalists who don’t necessarily swallow the accepted wisdom.
...Being seen as advocates, I know, it’s a kind of a heresy in some ways, but I
think we need to push limits (Interview 2001)
If we accept that the media is not only a tool of the dominant hegemonic interests, but
provides the means for resistant struggle as well (see page 26), this statement could be
interpreted as follows: Advocacy journalism provides the means for counter-hegemonic
journalism, which is essential in bringing about change and should be seen as a reflection
of the active agency of the journalist. The pattern of representation, the shift from
relatively neutral to a more loaded vocabulary, the harmonisation of the reporter’s and the
residents’ voices and especially the increasingly active role of the reporter’s voice, can all
be seen as reflections of change in the coverage of South Durban.
At the same time, news production is shaped by the structures and the normative
constraints the reporter is working under. Promoting advocacy for instance, can be seen
as “heresy”, as Carnie points out. With regards to the subjective style in the article
“Agony of the children” (analysed in chapter 5), Carnie rationalises his choices safely
within notions of objectivity in the meaning of being non-partisan:
The fact that I personalise it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s partisan... I don’t
find any difficulty in recording your personal experiences, because you are
recording that it is clear that it is your personal opinion and thinking, and I don’t
see any problem with that (Interview 2001).
In a broader perspective; as far as the media has been obliged to transform after 1994,
this has probably provided the individual journalist with changed structures, enabling or
forcing her/him to change in terms of practice.
52
Generally, when it comes to normative ideals about news selection and news production,
Carnie, Gowans as well as Bisetty come close to the liberal watchdog position (see page
19). Bisetty expresses an adversarial attitude, saying that journalists in general have
become “a bit too afraid to take on politicians head-on” (Bisetty in interview 2001).
Carnie and Gowans are motivated by an urge to investigate and “trying to cover things
which are suppressed or hidden” (Carnie in interview 2001). Gowans refers to a quote
from a book she got from her editor when she started as a journalist, which she still sees
as a formulation of what news is:
[It] says ‘news is something that someone wants suppressed, all the rest is
advertising. And if you apply that to stories, environmental stories, or good
environmental stories, that is true, because, you know, when people don’t want
you to write about a story, then that’s news because they’re trying to hide it,
whether it’s environment politics, business... (Interview 2001).
As already pointed out, though, ideals are restrained by factors outside the control of the
individual journalist. One such factor of rising salience is commercialisation. Carnie finds
that an increasingly “commercial atmosphere’ makes thorough journalism harder to do,
something which will be explored in more detail below. He also emphasises the same
problem that many other environmental journalists have (see chapter 3): Environmental
issues tend to be long-term and often complex issues, something which makes them
difficult to adjust to the event-orientation and short time frames of news.
With crime it has immediate impact on people’s lives… when you talk about
something like global warming; it’s not going to come and kill you tomorrow, but
it might in ten years time. So it gets elbowed out, and there’s not always the
appreciation of the importance of environmental issues” (Carnie in interview
2001).
Carnie’s series on cancer and air pollution is an exception to the conventional news
formats. It reveals something that has been hidden to the public and is a long term and
complex issue rather than focused on a single event.
Sources
The strong focus on residents and NGOs found in the content analysis (Chapter 4) is
confirmed in my textual discourse analysis, where residents appear as increasingly
significant voices. This harmonises with Gowans’s general observation that “people are
53
obviously more and more empowered” (Interview 2001). It is perhaps not surprising that
Carnie and Gowans declare a commitment to giving a voice to the grassroots perspective
and in that sense to contribute to empowerment through journalism. Their focus on the
community level and their non-elitist approach reveals a normative view of journalism
much in line with the participatory position (see page 20). Bisetty restricts himself to
seeing individuals as important and as the most credible sources (Interview 2001).
Hansen (1993) found that the environmental organisation Greenpeace was generally seen
as credible by environmental journalists (see page 10 and 11). My study finds that the
most striking difference between the political reporter and environmental reporters is the
way they view NGOs as sources. Carnie, Gowans and Peters regard NGOs among the
most important and credible sources. For political reporter Bisetty, individuals as credible
sources have nothing to do with NGOs. “I don’t even do [take into consideration] NGOs
… they’re just there to get funding, that is all. I don’t think NGOs play a major role”
(Interview 2001). Carnie and Gowans both see NGOs as increasingly important and as
credible representatives of otherwise invisible individuals and marginalised communities.
“They don’t have the same access to the media, and I think they need to be given extra
access...” (Carnie in interview 2001).
However, Carnie describes Bisetty’s view as the dominant one in the media as a whole:
Often they [NGOs] reflect the concerns of ordinary people, which are on their
own, kind of locked in society. But with NGOs they’re challenging, they’re
focusing that energy and that criticism and suggestions. But at the same time,
within the media... They are still seen as marginal groups. And often official
sources will be given more credibility and more prominence in what issues are
discussed (Interview 2001).
In relation to the important voice of NGOs in the coverage of South Durban it is worth
adding that NGOs in recent years have become much more important on a global (at least
Western) scale. This has much to do with the spreading of the Internet. They include
everything from obscure underground movements to largely professionalised movements,
such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. One other important factor is presumably
the possibilities in South Durban after apartheid of organising across previously
segregated communities. The Bluff is traditionally a white working class area, while the
other communities are predominantly black. In 1997 the South Durban Community
54
Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) was formed, uniting ten different, mostly community
based, organisations. At the same time, some academic research on environment and
development in the South Durban area has helped SDCEA to gain the attention of the
media.15
As much as environmental journalists Carnie and Gowans find NGOs credible they are
sceptical towards government sources, which is rather peculiar maybe, considered the
high frequency of government quotes in the content analysis. “I have a problem with
government sources, I have a huge problem” (Gowans in interview 2001). Carnie is
observing a “mindset of fear of speaking to the media” within government (Interview
2001).
In explaining the generally increased prominence of residents’ voices, Bisetty and Peters
refer to the political changes in South Africa. After apartheid, journalists have gained
“more freedom to express” themselves (Bisetty in interview 2001). Even if there was
freedom of expression to some extent, “nobody listened after the elections. People are
starting to take notice. Maybe the government [now] is taking notice, while the previous
white government just didn’t give a shit” (Bisetty in interview 2001). Peters puts it this
way: “The [new] Government... seen as the “people’s” government had a responsibility
to ensure something was being done” (Interview 2001).
In a wider perspective, the changing order of discourse around air pollution in South
Durban, found in the previous chapter, is linked to other orders of discourse. News
discourse is bound to be reshaped within a post-apartheid political order of discourse
focused on the disadvantaged, dominated by ‘transformation’, ‘development’ and
‘empowerment’. The prominence of resident’s voices and the tendency towards a less
‘objectifying’ and more interpreting and ‘storytelling’ type of news discourse can be seen
as reflections of the incorporation of new concerns. Discourses of human rights and antiimperialism are also part of this picture. These have been core issues to the former
liberation movement now in government.
15
The Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Durban-Westville, has had a research project on
Environment and Development in the Durban Metropolitan Area. The major campaigner for SDCEA, Bobby
Peek, was working with this project.
55
Developmental issues and environmental issues
There is no doubt that development is high on the national government’s agenda in South
Africa. The country is trying to improve material standards, health and education for the
disadvantaged part of the population. A discourse of development is not very explicit in
the analysis of the coverage of air pollution in South Durban, but development is
unavoidably an important underlying topic. Both Carnie and Gowans believe
developmental issues and environmental issues are closely connected. However, in South
Africa “environment tends to take a bit of a back seat... with so many other priorities in
the government” (Gowans in interview 2001), and is treated “as separate issues within the
press” (Peters in interview 2001).
It lies outside the scope of this project to discuss the relation between environment and
development in detail, but I will make three observations in relation to journalism.
Firstly, it is clear that the environmental journalists wish to see development in an
environmental perspective in a country where, for example, “environment is so important
to tourism” (Gowans in interview 2001). Secondly, the environmental journalists lament
that the environment is generally perceived as a marginal issue in the developmental
context of South Africa.
There are many misconceptions and very narrow definitions of what the
environment is. I think there’s still a large body of opinion which believes that the
environment is a very marginal issue, and that it’s OK for affluent people who
have the luxury of sitting in their armchairs. It is very difficult to change those
perceptions (Carnie in interview 2001).
Thirdly, the political journalists interviewed seem to see development and environment as
separate issues. They claim that it is rational and right that development comes first.
Environment is seen more as a ‘luxury item’, as it was when recession came in Europe in
the 1990s and the environment ceased in media coverage (see page 14).
...like jobs...you can see now that people are battling everywhere, so that then is
the first need as opposed to the environment...Once you’ve got that you move on
to the next challenge, environment does not feature there. [The] people of South
Durban, they have their houses and everything, and they are complaining. But
they have places to go, and they basically have what everybody needs, and they
are worried about the air pollution, you know...What about those who sleep in the
streets? (Mhlanga in interview 2001).
56
The relation between goals of development and goals of environment is largely defined
by the contesting discourses surrounding them. It is clear from these observations that
‘the environment’ has different meanings to journalists on different beats. The political
journalists interviewed find environment and development to be in direct conflict,
whereas the environmental journalists largely see a direct relation.
The discordant views of the journalists illustrates how complex and contradictory the
transformation process in South Africa is. From one viewpoint the central task is to
prepare a healthy environment for people suffering from the structures of apartheid and
environmental racism. From the other side of it, the most important thing is to provide
jobs and material development for largely the same people, similarly struggling with
other sides of the apartheid legacy. As much as these are conflicting goals they are part of
the same goal, that is the improvement of the quality of life for the disadvantaged
majority.
Democratisation or marketisation?
The analysis of the newspaper coverage of air pollution in South Durban finds a
significant tendency towards increasingly complex types of news discourse. This is
visible in the intertextual blend of different discourses in many texts (or communicative
events), producing relatively heterogeneous texts. What Fairclough (1995) terms “a
complex and creative discourse practice” (1995: 60) is at work. According to Fairclough
(ibid), creative discourse practices are typically tied to fluid, unstable and shifting
sociocultural practices, again related to changing sociocultural conditions. The interviews
in this case indicate that sociocultural practice on the level of professional norms are far
from homogeneous, and not always in line with established conventions.
I have already argued that there is a changing order of discourse of the Durban newspaper’s
coverage of South Durban. The struggle over this order of discourse, between main
participants/voices such as business, government and residents, appears to be sliding in favour
of the residents. This claim is largely built on the fact that residents are given increased and
authorised access, for example in that an informal type of language associated with ‘ordinary
life and experience’ gains legitimacy. The latter is also related to wider societal processes and
changes in societal orders of discourse, which Fairclough (1995, 1992) points out.
57
Specifically, he identifies two major tendencies: democratisation and marketisation. I
understand the term ‘marketisation’ to roughly have the same meaning as the term
‘commercialisation’.
(Fairclough 1995: 10). Both are highly relevant to South Africa. The country is in the
process of transformation to a democratic society and at the same time opening up for
globalisation and liberalisation of the economy.
Fairclough (1995) states that there is a tension in contemporary media language between
information and entertainment, which is closely linked to the tension between public and
private. There is a tendency in public affairs media to become more conversationalised,
that is, to apply discourses of the private sphere, of ‘ordinary life and experience’, and
thus fuse the private with the public sphere. This can in turn be interpreted in terms of an
intensified commercialisation within the media, where pressures and competition draw
media closer into operating on a market basis. One such pressure is to increase
entertainment increasingly within public affairs output (Fairclough 1995: 11) and one
consequence is the construction of audiences as consumers. With this in mind, the
discursive changes in the coverage of air pollution in South Durban can be interpreted not
only as a reflection of empowered residents. To the extent that conversationalisation is a
significant characteristic of the coverage, they may reflect a form of marketisation, that
is, to increasingly operate on a market basis.
This has further implications. From an ideological perspective (see page 18) it is possibly
“part of a normalization and naturalization of consumer behaviour and consumer
culture,” (Fairclough 1995: 13), thus undermining the media as a public sphere. Social
and political issues are then put to the margin helping to protect existing power relations
and patterns of dominance from serious challenge. People “are constructed as spectators
of events rather than participating citizens” (ibid).
The crucial questions are: Is the changing order of discourse of air pollution in South
Durban a manifestation of a real shift in power relations in favour of the residents? Or is
it rather a reflection of hegemonic strategies by those in power to preserve power
relations and “to more effectively recruit people as audiences and manipulate them
58
socially and politically?” (ibid). I think the textual observations made in chapter 5
provide good reasons to give most weight to the first scenario.
As Fairclough underlines, while conversationalisation potentially is ideological it also
signifies “some degree of cultural democratization” (ibid). Democratisation of discourse
means “the removal of inequalities and asymmetries in the discursive and linguistic
rights, obligations and prestige of groups of people” (Fairclough 1992: 201). The
tendency towards informality, largely manifested in conversational language, is the most
distinct overt marker of the removal of such inequalities and asymmetries (Fairclough
1992: 204). Language of ordinary life and experience is upgraded in parallel with for
example the rejection of the authority of science as “specialists talking technical
language” (Fairclough 1995: 14). Another marker is the elimination of “asymmetries in
rights to make certain sorts of contribution, such as initiating topics.” (Fairclough 1992:
203).
Both these markers are characteristic of much of the coverage of South Durban from
1995 and especially from 2000, as documented in the previous chapter. In other words: In
terms of discourse, the coverage of air pollution in South Durban in Durban newspapers,
largely centered around the triangle of business, government and residents/NGOs, does
move in the direction of a real shift in power relations in favor of the residents/NGOs.
Recognising a significant degree of democratisation in this case is not the same as
ignoring the marketisation aspect. Due to its complex nature and often unfit timestructure to meet the demands of dominant news values, environmental issues are perhaps
even more likely than other issues to suffer from the growing trend of market-thinking in
journalism (see page 18). The two environmental journalists interviewed here have
different views on the impact of marketisation on their work in South Africa.
Gowans believes her situation is not significantly affected by the trend, partly because her
work in a Sunday paper leaves her more space for deeper and broader perspectives than
daily newspapers do. To the extent that she must abandon this privilege has to do with the
attitude of editors and the lack of a “strong news angle” to the story (Interview 2001). “I
don’t think it has anything to do with commercialisation, I think it’s purely to do with
space (ibid)”.
59
Carnie on the other hand, has a very different experience: “The commercial pressures are
increasing all the time in South African newspapers, there is a clear pressure, an
understanding that news has to be guided by what is seen as commercially attractive to
readerships” (Interview 2001). Regarding environmental journalism as a beat, Carnie
sees “an increased pressure to push it out” (Interview 2001). I have argued that in
particular his series on cancer and air pollution represents a progressive construction of
air pollution in South Durban and a form of democratisation. However, Carnie suggests
that this type of journalism is in serious danger of becoming marginalised in the face of
commercialisation:
For various reasons I think the media... has lost its... well not entirely its morality,
but its sense of being a service to a community. And it’s really becoming
increasingly driven by commercial imperatives, rather than contributing to society
through information which is relevant to it. And it’s a very worrying trend that
newspapers are being forced in many ways into this situation of selling, trying to
sell stories which they think will increase their readership, without challenging
issues, by treading on toes of advertisers, for example, or... of the established
power blocks within society (Interview 2001).
A resource for renewal? Environmental journalism as investigative journalism
Carnie’s words resonate a growing concern within journalistic circles of loosing touch
with genuine public matters and the democratic purpose of journalism. Public apathy and
dwindling circulations have typically been met with increasingly market-oriented
pressures on journalism, in a climate of accelerating media corporatisation and
globalisation (see page 18). A pressing need for renewal in journalism and a normative
legitimation of renewal is growing.
One response to the situation comes from environmental journalists arguing for advocacy
(see pages 12 and 13). Another response, theoretically related to the advocacy movement,
as well as to ideas of participatory journalism and liberal ‘watchdog ideas’ (see page 19),
is suggested by Ettema and Glasser (1998). They find that investigative journalism offers
a set of news values, which can contribute to the building of an alternative to
conventional journalistic practice. Traditional journalism has become stuck in what they
regard as the paradoxical and artificial separation of fact and value, in short the classical
notion of objectivity (see page 16 and 17). Investigative journalism, they claim, shows
60
most pointedly the intrinsic connection between fact and value, where the “fiercest of
indignation (is) fused with the hardest of facts” (Ettema and Glasser 1998: 10).
As discourse that fuses hard fact and human value, it points toward forms of
journalism that can more actively engage the social world while respecting the
truth, forms that can embrace an enlarged sense of social responsibility while
setting realistic standards for its practicioners (Ettema and Glasser 1998: 186).
On the practical level, however, the presumably most distinguished investigative
journalists in the U.S., interviewed in their book, continue to cling to the discourse of
objectivity in describing their craft. According to Ettema and Glasser (1998),
investigative journalism is contradicting itself. Investigative journalism is a moral
practice, whatever claims about objectivity.
Three core values of investigative journalism are highlighted as having normative
potential for journalism in general: 1) Publicity: bringing to public attention serious
instances of systemic breakdown and institutional disorder that have been mostly
unnoticed or institutionally concealed. 2) Accountability: demanding an account of the
situation from those who are responsible. 3) Solidarity: establishing an emphatic link
between those who have suffered in the situation and the rest of us (Ettema and Glasser
1998: 189).
In Tony Carnie’s investigation into the link between air pollution and blood cancer all
these elements are evident. By moving beyond events and focusing on evidence of
concrete and serious consequences of air pollution, it certainly brings an instance of
“systemic breakdown” into the light, or uncovers “things which are suppressed or
hidden”, as Carnie puts it (Interview 2001). Thus, it may “engender significant and
enduring change in the way public affairs are perceived, understood, and debated”
(Ettema and Glasser 1998: 190). Polluting industries are required to respond and deal
with the new evidence.
‘Solidarity’ arguably stands out as the most predominant value in Carnie’s series. Ettema
and Glasser contend that solidarity is probably the most “alien” to the values of
journalistic practice today, but still the most “urgent” one (1998: 200).16 Chapter 5 notes
16
They refer to American journalism.
61
how the voices of local residents became more prominent. Stories of fates, emotions and
human values are told in a type of vocabulary and narrative that enable readers to identify
with the suffering caused by air pollution. In theory at least, this holds the potential of
building solidarity. Inspired by the philosopher Richard Rorty (1989), Ettema and Glasser
(1998) state that good investigative reporting can engage our conscience and lead us to
“identify with the plight of the less fortunate”. This is done “not by reciting facts but by
crafting stories with this premise: some of us are being treated unjustly and the rest of us
must know” (Ettema and Glasser 1998: 197).
In defining their work in strictly empirical terms, the journalists “deny themselves a
powerful moral vocabulary with which to respond openly and explicitly to questions of
human interest”, write Ettema and Glasser (1998: 185). Observing Carnie’s statements
this “powerful moral vocabulary” seems to be closer at hand. Without abandoning
objectivity, the two environmental reporters interviewed in my study come much closer
to accepting the moral aspects of their practice than the American investigative reporters
interviewed in Ettema and Glasser’s (1998) book. Carnie and Gowans’ views of
advocacy are the clearest evidences.
Local journalists might be less inclined to confirm to the American insistence on classical
objectivity. At the same time, in my case study I have found that environmental
journalists differ from journalists on other beats. Carnie and Gowans may not be
representative for all environmental journalists. However, just the mere fact that the
question of advocacy versus objectivity is so central to debates around environmental
journalism, is a sign that it might have come further than the profession as a whole in the
process of adapting journalism to contemporary challenges. Maybe they are “ahead of
their peers” as LaMay (1991) puts it (see page 13). To that extent, it might be fruitful to
look to investigative environmental journalism in the search for renewal.
Summary
Based on the journalists' own perspectives this chapter investigates the norms and
sociocultural factors that shape their practices. The focus is on their views on news values and
professional ideals, sources, and the relationship between environmental and developmental
62
issues. It is clear that relatively distinct differences divide the journalists who have the
environment as their beat and those who do not. The journalists who work with the
environment see themselves as advocates for the environment, they consider NGOs to be
crucial and credible sources, and they see a necessary connection between development and
the environment. The journalists with politics as their beat treasure strict objectivity, they are
sceptic to NGO sources, and acknowledge no link between development and the environment.
The chapter further concludes that the increasingly conversational tone in the coverage of
South Durban represents a democratic achievement. As a counterweight to mounting
commercial pressures in the media, investigative environmental journalism is discussed as a
possible source of inspiration.
CHAPTER 7
63
CONCLUSION
The environment has since the late 1960s become established, variably, but increasingly, as a
public and political issue, spanning over a broad spectrum of topics, from wildlife
conservation to the greenhouse effect. At the same time, environmental reporting has emerged
as a separate beat within journalism, though the number of reporters assigned have been going
up and down along with the cyclical pattern of media interest in the environment (Hansen
1993).
The mass media is crucial in defining our perceptions of the world, and the growth of
environmental interest is closely linked to the role of the media. Thus, what informs our
knowledge, definitions and understanding of the environment is strongly dependent upon
media representations.
A limited amount of research on media and the environment is available, mostly centred on
Western societies. There is one exception; a study which compares environmental journalism
in India and Britain (Chapman et al 1997). The study finds that environmental issues and
developmental issues are hardly linked in British environmental journalism, while in India the
two issues were regarded as one. Moreover, many Indian environmental journalists are
inclined to campaign in some instances, while the British want to be ‘objective’.
Previous research has found that environmental journalism generally adapts to conventional
news production practices and news values. For instance, there tends to be a strong eventorientation to stories, and what is to reach news columns must generally fit into already
established news topics or frames. There is a strong reliance on government and official (elite)
sources, though NGOs have become increasingly important. The problem for environmental
journalism is that environmental issues often are complex, long-term phenomena rather than
singular events, and therefore does not easily suit conventional news formats.
The special character and seriousness of environmental issues has motivated some
environmental journalists to challenge entrenched news conventions and argue for advocacy
journalism. Such viewpoints have not only come from India, but also from major journalists
in the U.S., which probably is the country in the world where the objectivity ideal is most
firmly incorporated.
64
South Africa is in some ways comparable to both India and the U.S., and can be located
somewhere in between the Third World and First World labels. Environmental problems
represent a major challenge, but compete for attention with a long line of other urgent issues.
However, some environmental issues do receive significant media coverage from time to
time, one example being air pollution in South Durban.
Given the racial constitution (largely black), the historical context of South Durban and the
transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa, I hypothesised that there has been a
change in the coverage of South Durban in Durban newspapers (The Mercury, Daily News
and Sunday Tribune) of air pollution in the area from 1985 up until present. Through
application of a combination of quantitative and mainly qualitative methods, such as content
analysis, critical discourse analysis and interviews, I have found this hypothesis to be valid.
The content analysis (Chapter 4) finds, firstly, that coverage of air pollution in South Durban
was scarce in 1985 and continued that way for the rest of the decade. Coverage grew slightly
in 1990. There was a marked increase in 1995, while in 2000 South Durban was seriously put
on the map and given extensive coverage. The development largely concurs with the
dismantling of the apartheid regime and the transition to democracy in South Africa.
Secondly, the content analysis establishes that government officials and politicians are a
dominant source quoted in the articles, which thus confirm to the standard pattern of news.
However, the coverage also departs from news conventions. Primarily in 1995 and 2000,
individual residents of the South Durban area together with NGOs emerge as dominant
sources.
The latter tendency is further elaborated in Chapter 5, examining content of the newspaper
text material qualitatively with the use of critical discourse analysis. There are several
theoretical approaches to critical discourse analysis. This study is informed by van Dijk’s
(1996) concept of access as an indicator of power, and Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) approach,
linking textual components to levels of practice, social context and aspects of power. The
analysis discovers that the representation of South Durban changes significantly in the years
investigated. From being portrayed mostly as a ‘green’ issue, air pollution becomes more of a
‘brown’ health issue in 1995 and totally so in 2000, when the focus lies on the direct link
between air pollution and serious health problems, such as cancer. Residents’ voices, backed
65
by NGOs, are given increased access, legitimacy and authority, in the struggle to define the
environmental reality of South Durban.
This is due to the emergence of a more heterogeneous news form, where discourses of
everyday life and realities, that is the discourses of the residents, gain greater prominence. A
more loaded, informal and often metaphorical type of vocabulary is part of this. The classical
objectifying news discourse, favouring the typically ‘objective’ technical-bureaucratic
discourses of business and government looses terrain correspondingly. My claim is that the
changes represent a real democratic achievement. In social terms, there is a shift in power
from a dominating government and industry towards stronger residents. These changes are
particularly evident in environmental reporter Tony Carnie’s investigative series on air
pollution and cancer in The Mercury in 2000, which constitutes the majority of the coverage
that year.
Generally, in Carnie’s series, the reporter’s voice is relatively active, in the sense that it
interprets, describes and evaluates. Firstly, this is part of a storytelling type of narrative,
depicting residents as ordinary people and victims of pollution, which the reader can identify
with. Secondly, the contextualisation of business/industry statements through interpretation
and evaluation provides a critical edge to the reporting lacking in earlier coverage.
A central question in South African media debates is whether there has been a real change or
transformation in the media in the years since the fall of apartheid. Some structural changes,
for example in terms of ownership, are evident. However, when it comes to content, there is
hardly any research documenting the one or the other. My case study is a contribution in that
respect: The representation of air pollution in the predominantly black residential areas
of South Durban has intensified and changed during the 1990s towards a much stronger
focus on the residents’ rights and concerns.
Chapter 6 shifts the focus from the content of newspaper articles to the journalists and what
shapes their practices, normatively and in terms of broader sociocultural factors. The chapter
finds that there are different ethics at work among journalists who have covered air pollution
in South Durban. In my study, a relatively distinct demarcation runs between journalists who
have the environment as their beat interest, and those who have not, in their views on news
66
values and professional ideals, sources and the relationship between environmental and
developmental issues.
The environmental journalists see themselves as advocates for the environment, and thus
place themselves in line with a number of other environmental journalists in the world who
have argued for a break with strict objectivity. The other journalists, on the other hand, see
objectivity as the most central and important rule of journalism. Generally, the environmental
journalists have a more reflected and critical view on conventionalised news practices and
norms, than the political journalists interviewed.
While the political journalists consider NGOs and industry as equally vested and of minor
importance as sources, the journalists who work with the environment see NGOs as crucial
and credible. What all the journalists have in common is a strong scepticism towards
governmental sources.
The contradicting views between the environmental journalists and the political journalists on
environmental issues and developmental issues illustrate how different meanings are put into
the concepts. The environmental journalists see environment and development as closely knit
issues. The political journalists deem the two totally separate, and argue that the South
African situation demands development to be prioritised before environment.
In sum, it appears that the news coverage and construction of air pollution in South Durban is
likely to be approached and turn out differently when environmental journalists, rather
journalists on other beats, cover the issue. Judging from Carnie’s series on air pollution, it is
also likely that specialist coverage will go deeper, be more critical and more heterogeneous in
form and content, than other coverage.
These qualities are threatened by what MacManus (1994) calls market-driven journalism,
where commercial criteria, rather than journalistic criteria, decide what is newsworthy. From
Carnie’s point of view, commercialism is a very real threat at the moment. Still,
environmental journalism holds a set of journalistic values with which to counter this
development, and to at least theoretically provide useful normative resources for journalism in
general.
67
More than anything, this study has shown that the residents of South Durban, from being
mostly neglected, have become a significant voice in the coverage of air pollution in Durban
newspapers. This is due to a number of factors, such as the growth of NGOs and the general
political development in South Africa. Not least, it is due to a journalistic practice that
challenges, rather than preserves powerful hegemonic interests.
68
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Daily News 19 October 1995, page unknown
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Melanie Peters, March 2001
73
APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1
Agenda of questions serving as basis for interviews with journalists
1) What led you to report about South Durban?
2) In the last 10-12 years some environmental journalists, including a senior editor of Time
Magazine, have argued for advocacy journalism because of the urgent and serious
environmental situation and said that they are advocates for the environment in their
environmental journalistic practice. Do you see yourself as an advocate for the environment
when covering environmental issues? Should one be? Why/Why not?
3) What is your view of objectivity in news in general and in environmental
news in particular? To what extent is objectivity in news possible, in your
view? If yes what makes you an objective journalist?
4) Do you see yourself as a neutral observer, or do you see yourself as a participant in the
happenings within the community you cover(ed)?
5) What considerations are important for you when you decide if you shouldfollow up an idea
or a tip to a story or not?
6) Some journalists have claimed that it has become increasingly difficult to get complex in
depth stories into the media. One of the usual explanations is that journalism has become
more commercialised and market-oriented. What is your experience?
7) Why is/was pollution in South Durban interesting from a news perspective?
8) I have studied the coverage of pollution in South Durban in Durban Newspapers
comparing 1985, 1990, 1995 and 2000. I found only one article in this category in 1985, only
a few in 1990, while there was a considerable increase in 1995 and almost an explosive
increase in 2000. I also found that while government sources where dominant sources all
along, individual residents of South Durban became a new and significant voice, particularly
74
from 1995 and especially in 2000. What is your explanation of this development?
9) Which agents do you consider most credible and interesting in relation to pollution in
South Durban: Politicians, business, NGOs, experts/scientists, unvested individuals or others?
10) A recent study of environmental journalism in Great Britain and India found that in India
developmental issues and environmental issues where inseparable and completely linked,
while in Britain there was hardly any link at all. Unlike British journalists, Indian journalists
interviewed in the study, expressed no obligation to be neutral or objective in their reporting,
and some were willing to campaign for certain issues. (Environmental campaining often had a
developmental focus on the poor.) Do you believe that doing environmental journalism in
South Africa is different, or should be different from doing environmental journalism in
‘Western’ countries?
11) What is your view of the relation between developmental issues and environmental
issues?
75
APPENDIX 2
Newspaper articles
ANC MP slams oil company abuses
TONY CARNIE
A SENIOR African National Congress MP has spoken out strongly against human rights
abuses by multi-national oil companies and has voiced concern about plans to expand four
South African oil refineries.
Ms Gwen Mahlangu, who chairs the parliamentary portfolio committee on the environment,
made the remarks when she opened an international Oilwatch conference in Durban at the
weekend.
Addressing delegates from developing nations who attended the two-day conference, Ms
Mahlangu said she was concerned that several oil companies operating in South Africa had
been linked to human rights abuses or civil war.
“The future expansion of the oil industry is something that we cannot ignore, and as I address
you today, all four crude oil refineries in South Africa have plans to expand their production
(Engen and Shell/BP in Durban, Caltex in Cape Town and Total/Sasol in Sasolburg).
Furthermore, the associated expansion of these plants has been linked with the possible
relocation of people in South Durban.”
She noted that the constitution guaranteed people the right to an environment which did not
harm their health or well-being – but this guarantee was “meaningless” in places like South
Durban if air pollution were not controlled.
It was also important to educate South African politicians about environmental issues
affecting poor communities, she said, and to develop strategies against countries and
companies that “continue to harm people due to financial greed for cheap energy”.
o Oilwatch is a non-government organisation formed in Ecuador in 1996 with the aim of
monitoring or resisting the activities of oil companies in developing nations. It has members
in 50 countries.
(The Mercury 31 July 2000)
76
APPENDIX 3
Cancer and air pollution in Durban South: Fact or fiction?
Agony of the children
A special
investigation
by
Tony Carnie
chief Reporter
cases
ON THE BLUFF
47 Marine Drive: Lisa Rose Chapple, 14, died of leukaemia last year.
51 Marine Drive: Mrs Alberta Thomas, 73, died of lung cancer 10 years ago. Her daughter,
Mrs Maria Waterman, 51, died of lung cancer eight years ago, in nearby Hignett Road.
52 Marine Drive: Mr John Steenman, 19, died of cancer 10 years ago. His father, Jan, also
died of cancer, about 15 years ago at the same address.
53 Marine Drive: Mr Harold Butler, 67, died of stomach cancer in 1990.
65 Marine Drive: Mr Leon Coetsee, 65, but described by neighbours as very fit for his age,
died of leukaemia in May 2000.
Marine Drive: Mrs “S” suffering from cancer (full name known to The Mercury).
102 Marine Dve: Mrs Joan Price, 71, died of lung cancer in September 1999. Never smoked,
according to friends.
105 Marine Drive: Mr Peter Wilson, 63, died of cancer 26 years ago.
117 Marine Drive: Dr Jemima Verster-Whitehorn, 44, died of stomach cancer in December
1999.
157 Marine Drive: Mrs Coull was treated for cancer in 1984 and 1986.
Marine Drive: Mrs “A”, a close neighbour, whose name is known to The Mercury, is fighting
cancer.
Thompson Road: In the house immediately behind the Chapple family, Mrs Susan Goosen,
mid-40s, died of cancer. Exact date not known.
58 Beaumont Road: Mrs Doreen Goosen, 70, diagnosed with cancer at the age of 54 and died
in 1992.
4 Hilltop Road: Mr Martin Knoche, 24, died of leukaemia in 1994. He grew up in Clement
Avenue and had lived on the Bluff since 1973.
Hilltop Road: Mr Aubrey Armstrong, 67, died of lung cancer in May 1994. He grew up on the
Bluff and lived in Hilltop Road for more than 20 years.
8 Thomond Road: Gareth Clark, 13, died of cancer in March 1999. Moved to Thomond Road
at the age of six.
Lighthouse Road: Werner Herbst, 12-13, died from leukaemia in early 1995.
160 Lighthouse Road: Mr Dirk Sadie has been treated for colon cancer.
424 Lighthouse Road: Mr Ernest Stacey, 53, died of skin, throat and mouth cancer in 1953,
four years after diagnosis.
428 Lighthouse Road: Mr Henk Maas, 59, died of lung cancer in 1972. His wife, Phyllis, died
of stomach cancer, aged 51, in 1970. At least one of their dogs also died of cancer.
432 Lighthouse Road: Mrs Margaret Hasieber, 74, died of stomach cancer in 1993. Her dog
also died of cancer.
77
444 Lighthouse Road: Mrs “W” believed to have died of cancer. (Her family did not wish to
confirm or deny details.)
448 Lighthouse Road: Mr Arthur Knott believed to have died of cancer. His wife, Iona,
believed to have died of leukaemia. Relatives could not be traced for confirmation and
accurate dates.
23 Polkinghorne Road: Ms Lynsey de Beer, 18, died of leukaemia in June 1995.
26 Polkinghorne Road: Norman Barrett has cancer of the ear.
34 Polkinghorne Road: Mrs Hazel Lumgair died of breast cancer seven years ago and her
husband, Trevor, died of lung cancer four years ago.
10 Seymor Avenue: Mr Andrew Harris, 25, died of leukemia in 1994. His mother said he bled
from the nose and mouth often. He shrank away slowly over 18 months. “Eventually, I used
to pray every night for God to take him away.”
19 Netford Road: Mr Wayne Hardman, 30, a well-known surfer, died from skin and lymph
cancer in 1993. He had a mole on his back, which developed into lymphoma.
81 Doon Road: Ms Gill de Jager, 36, died of lung cancer in November 1998. Doctors found a
lump the size of a tennis ball in her lung which later spread to her brain and several other
organs.
Abadan Road: Mr Pieter Muller, 56, and his wife, Anna, 56, both died of cancer. They were
among a handful of families who lived inside the Island View security zone for many years.
Mr Muller died of lung cancer seven years ago and never smoked. His wife died of cancer
three years ago.
Beach Road: Dr Pierre Potgieter, 33, was diagnosed with leukaemia in March 1996. He is at
present in remission after a bone marrow transplant, but has moved to Bloemfontein.
25 Beach Road: Mr Ronald Page, 56, died of brain cancer five years ago.
34 Crow’s Nest Avenue: Mr Barry Armstrong, 60, a well-known mayoral secretary of
Durban, died of cancer in 1993.
Lancelot Avenue: Mr Rodney Coley, 67, died of lung cancer 11 years ago. He was a smoker.
Doble Road: Mr Willie Wurdemann died in August 1998 from cancer, aged 73. He had lived
on the Bluff for several years but was living in Glenwood when he died.
44 Wylie Road: Mrs Madge Moyses was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 56 and
died aged 61 after cancer spread to her lungs and other organs.
Blackpool Road: Mrs Pat Knowles, 49, died of breast cancer in 1973. Her husband, Mark,
moved to another part of the Bluff after her death and later to New Germany, where he was
diagnosed with cancer of the jaw in 1989. He died soon afterwards at the age of 69.
745 Bluff Road: Mr Keiran Egan, 42, died of cancer of the throat and lungs in 1987.
Hathaway Road: Mrs Lilian Beer, early 60s, died about 20 years ago from cancer which
developed in her breast but spread throughout her body.
31 Hathaway Road: Mr John Minaar has been treated for colon cancer.
29 Fowey Road: Sade Schwartz, 13, has brain cancer. She was diagnosed last year, but cannot
have surgery because of the location of the cancer and is being treated with chemotheraphy
and radiation.
31 Kings Rest Road: Mrs Marcia Marnewick was diagnosed with cancer last year and is in
remission. Her son, Jimmy, 25, died of bone cancer in 1996 shortly after moving to the
Transvaal. He had lived on the Bluff from the age of nine.
THIS is a list of some of the cancer cases in South Durban traced by The Mercury, published
with the consent of family members wherever possible.
It is by no means exhaustive and there is no suggestion that all of the cases were caused by air
pollution. However, the Merebank children are surrounded on three sides by major polluters –
Sapref, Engen, Mondi and the busy South Coast freeway.
78
The list has been compiled mainly from interviews with residents, because geographically
based cancer records are not available from the National Cancer Registry.
IT NEEDS to be said at the start that there are many crossroads and stumbling blocks on the
pathway to finding answers. And at the end, only half the “truth” may emerge, the rest hidden
at the back of unexplored alleys.
I don’t pretend that I had time or expertise to explore every alley.
But my gut feeling, however prejudiced or jaundiced it may be, suggests that the number of
cancer cases in parts of south Durban is more than just co-incidence. The cases I learnt about
cannot all be explained away by “the usual suspects” – tobacco smoking, a poor diet, too
much sunlight or genetic factors.
And as a journalist – not a scientist or trained researcher – it is likely that my endeavours will
be dismissed in some quarters as unscientific, inconclusive or unduly alarmist.
Nevertheless, this is the story I would like to tell you about cancer and air pollution in south
Durban.
It started about two months ago with a telephone call from Mrs Eileen Chapple, a former
Bluff resident.
Eileen is a tough, gritty woman. But nearly a year after leukaemia killed Lisa Rose, her 14year-old daughter, she cannot come to terms with the tragedy.
“This has changed my whole life. Every time I go into her room these days it just tears my
soul. I used to be strong. But I’m a broken woman now. Just waiting to die.
“Lisa was so lovely. But it took just five weeks for her to die. At the end she was so sick she
didn’t even look like a human being.
“And I know it was the pollution on the Bluff that killed her . . .”
She told me this story around the time that the Bucket Brigade, a group of American citizen
activists, visited south Durban and collected air pollution samples – including samples outside
the Engen petrol refinery which indicated high levels of benzene, a well-established cause of
cancer.
Several community members also believe that south Durban has a high cancer rate, because of
the air pollution – but there’s no comprehensive evidence to prove (or disprove) the claim
beyond any doubt.
Mrs Chapple knows this, too. But she also knows the names and addresses of several people
from her old neighbourhood who died recently, or are still living with cancer and leukaemia.
She provided enough details on one small part of the Bluff to warrant a search for a possible
cancer “cluster”.
Within days of following up her leads (door-to-door and by phone), I had compiled a much
longer list of cancer cases – concentrated initially near the northern tip of the Bluff, next to the
military base which overlooks Africa’s largest tanker storage area for chemical and petroleum
products.
Later I discovered that every year, nearly 3 700 tons of “product” leaks into the air, ground or
water surrounding the 970 tanks at the Island View tanker farm.
Some of the products are harmless, such as vegetable oils. But other tanks house large
amounts of toxic petroleum or carcinogenic products such as benzene, acids, alcohols,
ketones, cyanchydrins and polymerised ethers.
And quite apart from the cancer cases which struck down their family and friends, residents
also told me anecdotes about the “smells in the night” which sometimes forced them to close
their windows, or how their curtains turned black and had to be washed frequently.
79
A resident in the Marlborough Park area of the Bluff told me about schoolchildren walking to
school one morning – pinching their nostrils closed to avoid breathing in noxious chemical
fumes.
Mr Norman Barrett, who moved to the Bluff to help his granddaughter when she developed
leukaemia, told me how a piece of his ear fell off in the bathroom recently. Soon after, he was
diagnosed with cancer.
Mr Ian Love, of Gray Park Road, told me of an incident a few years back when he found his
car and the roof of his house coated with a tar-like substance.
He washed his car but the residue wouldn’t budge. So he phoned the Engen refinery. They
promptly sent staff round with polish and a buffing machine to clean the muck off his car.
Mr Nelson Lutchmanna, of Warangal Road, Merebank, sometimes finds little black particles
in the phlegm he coughs up.
But I’ve lost count of the number of people who complained about asthma, even though their
families don’t have a history of asthma.
Yet I also found many people who have lived on the Bluff to a ripe old age with no health
problems to speak of.
I found a similar pattern in Wentworth and Austerville, though several people seemed
reluctant to make their cancer experience public.
Finally, in Merebank, I was shocked how easy it was to track down the parents of so many
young children with cancer and leukaemia. In some streets two children were affected.
Yet after finding so many cancer cases with relatively little effort, I began to wonder whether
cancer is commonplace throughout the city. If I repeated the exercise in Kwa Mashu, Phoenix
or Durban North, would I find similar problems?
Anyone with more information about other cancer cases, particularly childhood cases, can
contact Tony Carnie at tel (031) 308 2314.
They can also contact Michelle Simon of the South Durban Community Environmental
Alliance
at (031) 461 1991 or
Dr Mark Colvin of the Medical Research Council (031) 202 0777.
CASES
IN MEREBANK
2 Golconda Place: Tasleem Omar, 3, is sick with leukaemia and is being treated at Red Cross
Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town. Her parents had to leave Durban to find work in
Cape Town and be close to her during treatment, leaving their older son behind in the care of
grandparents.
6 Golconda Place: Joel Naicker, aged two-and-a-half, developed a lump on his back in May
last year. Doctors fear the growth is cancerous and recommended surgery, but his Christian
parents refuse to accept this and have opted for prayer instead.
36 Dinapur Road: Nathanael Bedessy, 3, died in September last year from acute
lymphoblastic leukaemia.
124 Dinapur Road: Jodache Naidoo, 4, was diagnosed with stomach cancer in February and
has had the tumour removed.
26 Lakhimpur Road: Shaina Gounden, 8, died three years ago from leukaemia.
59 Lakhimpur Road: Clement Naicker, 7, was diagnosed with a tumour of the spine at the age
of two and a half. He died in 1992.
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40 Satara Road: Eleven-year-old Raveshni Govender died of cancer of the spine and thigh in
October 1997.
85 Junagarth Road: Chantal Naidoo, 15, died in September last year from cancer which began
in her mouth earlier the same year.
44 Alwar Road: Patrick Pulliah, 13, was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of six. He died
last month.
53 Sambalpur Road: Roshell-Ria Govender, 7, was diagnosed with leukaemia in December
1999. Currently on chemotherapy.
133 Warangal Road: Ashlyn Dayanarain, 13. His mother, Aneesha, says he was diagnosed
with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia at the age of seven, but has responded to lengthy chemo
and radiation and is now in remission at the age of 13. Aneesha and her younger son suffer
from asthma.
144 Warangal Road: Shalindran Lutchmanna, 8, has a rare blood disorder and had to have his
spleen removed a year ago. The disease is not related to cancer but the cause is unclear. His
grandfather, George, died of liver cancer in January aged 72.
106 Badulla Drive: Mr Poonsamy Moodley, 78, died from lung cancer in 1995. He never
smoked or drank, according to his son, Moses. Moses Moodley, 43, and two nephews (both
19) living at the same address all suffer from asthma.
108 Badulla Drive: Mrs “Baby” Govender, 47, died nine years ago from cancer which
developed in a lung and spread to her back. Her family say she never smoked.
(The Mercury 11 September 2000)
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APPENDIX 4
Call for action over pollution
ANXIOUS parents, housewives and government ministers reacted with alarm and called for
firm action on air pollution yesterday after disclosures in The Mercury about cancer and other
health problems in south Durban.
Readers from several parts of the city inundated the newspaper with reports of leukaemia and
cancer cases, or to recount fears and experiences with air pollution.
Among the callers was an electrician who reported “very unusual burn marks” on power lines
in the Merebank area.
“It’s as if acid has settled over the top of the cables and eaten some of the copper strands
away. I’ve worked in several parts of the city, but I’ve only seen this happen in Merebank,” he
said.
In Pietermaritzburg, members of the KwaZulu-Natal parliament passed an urgent motion
introduced by provincial Environment Minister Narend Singh. The motion calls on national
Environment Minister Valli Moosa to reactivate a study on the impact of pollution in the area.
Mr Singh told The Mercury he had no doubt pollution levels were excessive and that an
independent monitoring system was needed to restore a measure of confidence in the
community.
“People need to see the government coming up with independent readings rather than relying
on industry statistics, but we also need a meeting of minds and broad support from all role
players.”
Scores of mothers of young children with asthma and other breathing problems also phoned in
to voice concern and anguish, and to express support for The Mercury’s investigation.
“I have to sit up through the night with my eight-year-old daughter for days on end because
she can’t breathe because of bronchial asthma,” said Ms Rene Minnie, of Bushlands Road,
Bluff.
A 33-year-old Amanzimtoti woman who has worked in Merebank for the past 10 years
phoned from Johannesburg, where she is recuperating from a bone marrow transplant for
leukaemia.
She had to abort her pregnancy after doctors detected a tumour in her unborn baby. She will
probably have to have a hysterectomy.
Seventy-year-old Mr Johan Mouton, of La Lucia, who was poisoned by chlorine gas at work
25 years ago, said he was worried about the long-term health of several dozen Isipingo
children who were poisoned at Strelitzia Secondary School by a leak of chlorine gas from the
Polifin plant at Umbogintwini on May 5.
“Those children might be fine at the moment, but who is going to compensate them if their
health starts to suffer?” he said. “I know what happened to me. I was poisoned twice at work
by chlorine gas but the effects only hit me some years later. Now I am paying the price. There
are times when my chest closes up completely and I just can’t breathe.”
Ms Lorna van der Merwe, of Umgeni Park, Durban North, said she was worried about the
“horrific sulphur/burning rubber smells” which wake her family in the early hours of the
morning.
“I think the fumes come from the factories in the Springfield Park and North Coast Road
industrial area and now my children have asthma and allergy problems. Sometimes when I
wake up in the morning my eyes are stuck together and I feel as if a bus has hit me.”
An Amanzimtoti resident called for closer scrutiny of emissions from the Umbongintwini
chemical complex. Other callers phoned from Kloof and Yellowwood Park to complain about
air pollution in their suburbs.
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Mr Gopaul Royen, of Chatsworth, who lost his wife Nalini to cancer two years ago, said he
feared vehicle exhaust fumes were to blame. He said three women who worked with his wife
also died of cancer.
All worked at a clothing factory near the intersection of Edwin Swales Drive and the South
Coast freeway underpass.
(The Mercury 12 September 2000)
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APPENDIX 5
Can Air pollution cause cancer?
Finding answers to this question depends on who you ask.
The Cancer Association of South Africa will tell you that people are most likely to get cancer
from smoking tobacco, alcohol abuse, a poor diet, genetic factors or too much sun.
But scientific studies in other parts of the world have found strong evidence that
environmental factors and industrial air pollution definitely increase your risk for some
cancers.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham Medical School in the UK found that children
were 20% more likely to die of leukaemia and solid tumour cancers if they were born near the
sources of industrial air pollution.
Prof George Knox and colleagues analysed the deaths of more than
22 000 children in England, Scotland and Wales between 1953 and 1980 and found that
childhood leukaemia and cancer tended to occur in “small, geographic clusters”.
Children at the highest risk were those born within 5km of the producers, refiners or industrial
users of petroleum and petro products (including solvents, paints, fibreglass, plastics and
varnish).
Also in Britain, Dr Dick van Steenis mapped a significant increase in the use of asthma
inhalers among primary school children in polluted areas.
He showed that cadmium levels at one school were equivalent to children smoking 300
cigarettes a day.
But when Dr van Steenis tried to develop a “post code” inventory for chronic diseases,
including cancer, he found himself thwarted and denied access to public health records.
Similar attempts to obtain postal code lists of cancer cases in Australia were also blocked for
several years by the New South Wales Cancer Registry when community leaders wanted to
investigate suspected cancer and leukaemia clusters near the Port Kembla industrial complex.
When the postal code lists were finally released, mathematician Daniela Reverberi calculated
that working-class people living close to Port Kembla were 10 times more likely to get cancer
than those living 18km away.
In Japan, health ministry statistics show that cancer was by far the biggest killer in that
country in 1998.
Although increased cancer deaths can also be explained by an ageing population profile and
other factors, some researchers believe it is partly due to industrial pollution and waste
incineration.
Because of its small size and high population, Japan burns much of its solid waste rather than
dumping it in landfill sites.
Only much later was it discovered that incineration produces dioxins, one of the most toxic
chemical groups known to man.
Though the study does not pinpoint all the environmental factors responsible for cancer cases
(because they could include smoking, radiation or air pollution), the findings help to debunk
conventional wisdom that cancer is mostly in your genes.
It also points to the need to reappraise the “blame the victim” syndrome in South African
cancer research.
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APPENDIX 6
Are some more vulnerable than others?
THE American Lung Association says children face the greatest risk from air pollution.
But the elderly are also vulnerable, along with younger people who
work or exercise outdoors and those with chronic breathing ailments.
The lung association emphasises the rather obvious point that air is essential to life, noting
that the average person takes about 20 000 breaths a day, processing it at a rate of about nine
litres a minute.
But children are at greatest risk from polluted air because they breathe in more air (per
kilogram of body weight) than adults do, and their respiratory systems are still developing.
Elderly people also lose important respiratory defence mechanisms as they age.
Meanwhile, those who work outdoors or exercise strenuously are also likely to breathe fast
and inhale deeply.
Pollution also aggravates sinus problems, bronchitis, asthma and allergies and some studies
suggest that it also contributes to lung problems in children still in the womb, as well as
damaging the immune systems of adults.
Prof Knox also found a strong correlation between childhood cancer cases and birth
addresses, implying that it was exposure to pollutants in the womb or just after birth that
caused cancer.
Contradicting established views, Prof Knox suggested that environmental pollution could
cause cancer in children in a variety of ways – by damaging inherited genetic material (DNA),
damaging immune systems or damaging cell division mechanisms.
A separate study by Prof Mel
Greaves for the Leukemia Research Fund also concluded that childhood leukaemias are not
inherited – but
are triggered by genetic changes
while the embryo is still in the
womb.
The Mercury also came across two young Bluff girls affected by an uncommon deadly disease
called SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus).
No one knows for certain what causes it. And like cancer it has no magic cure. Only the
symptoms can be controlled.
Difficult to diagnose, SLE is an auto-immune disease in which the body attacks itself. It has
been likened to two armies going to war against each other wearing the same uniform, with
the immune system unable to tell the difference between self and non-self. Though the exact
causes are unclear, exposure to certain drugs and chemicals causes SLE symptoms, which
cease when drugs are discontinued.
Some scientists believe there may be genetic and hormonal factors involved, but researchers
at Emory University in the United States have linked it to long-term exposure to industrial
pollution.
18 Tambotie Street – Thirteen-year-old Sherry Smit was diagnosed with SLE at the age of
eight and is now in partial remission after intensive chemotherapy, She will probably be on
cortisone treatment for the rest of her life.
The plucky little teenager smiled bravely when I visited her and she told me of her great love
for animals. But she is in obvious pain. She walks slowly, like an old woman, because of
crippling pain in her swollen heels and knees, and her body has been bloated from the
cortisone.
85
134 Dunville Road – Bronwyn Campbell, 15, died in September 1997 after being diagnosed
with SLE earlier the same year. The former Grosvenor Girls’ High School pupil had lost 15kg
and was unable to walk just before she died.
In the house next door (133 Dunville Road), three-year-old Geraldine MacDonald died of
kidney cancer in September 1994.
(The Mercury 12 September 2000)
86
APPENDIX 7
Moosa silent over pollution outcry
NATIONAL Environment Minister Valli Moosa remained silent on air pollution and health
problems in south Durban yesterday as residents continued to demand tougher action against
polluters.
However, his provincial counterpart, Mr Narend Singh, hopes to raise the issue with Mr
Moosa tomorrow and may call for the temporary closure of major industries in Durban until
pollution levels are reduced.
Interviewed on East Coast Radio, Mr Singh did not mention any companies by name, but
blamed Mr Moosa’s officials for failing to enforce air pollution laws.
“One needs to suggest shutting down of operations if pollution levels are excessive,” he said,
adding that litigation by the community could not be ruled out.
“We have to ensure that the rights of people are protected . . . We have to save young lives.”
His call was echoed by councillor Visvin Reddy, who will raise the issue at the Durban metro
council’s Exco meeting tomorrow.
A flood of responses continued to pour into The Mercury yesterday after the newspaper’s
recent disclosures, indicating the need for a comprehensive study into cancer and other health
problems in the south Durban area.
Residents continued to add new names to the growing list of cancer/leukaemia cases compiled
by The Mercury. And it was evident that many residents wanted to see firm co-ordinated
action resulting from the latest publicity rather than another brief flash in the pan.
Consultants, attorneys and fund-raisers are lining up to initiate further studies, to launch legal
class actions against major polluters or to source money from overseas to fund a proper health
study.
Former employees of major industries are also coming forward with new information about
lax safety conditions, which will be investigated further.
Mrs Ferial Goodfellow, of Sherwood, said she was shocked to learn about the health problems
in Merebank and elsewhere.
“We have put all of our energies into politics and crime in recent years, but we’ve done
nothing about pollution problems which threaten our lives.”
Ms Marie Sadie, of the Bluff, said she felt a sense of hopelessness.
“The world needs chemicals and petrol products – but it seems we can’t do a damn thing
about the pollution problems they cause in our homes.”
How Bad Is It? Page 11
(The Mercury 13 September 2000)
87
APPENDIX 8
How Bad is the pollution – and who controls the polluters?
There is no doubt that some of the chemicals and pollutants wafting around south Durban can
kill you – if they are present in large enough doses, or after prolonged exposure at harmful
levels.
But little is known about the present dosage levels in the air. Most of the current information
is based on guesswork, estimates and speculation rather than physical measurements of the air
which people take into their lungs.
This is what the CSIR scientific research body concluded three years ago when it tried to
assess the problem during a R2 million Strategic Environmental Assessment study funded by
Durban metro council:
“Information on air quality in south Durban is generally scanty and inadequate. There is no
comprehensive list of air pollutants in the area, let alone an indication of the ambient (ground
level) concentrations of these pollutants, or an indication of probable effects.”
Which, in short, means: “We are groping in the dark.”
Nevertheless, the researchers suggested that planning for industrial expansion would have to
proceed on the basis of a “limited knowledge base”, combined with tighter controls.
It was not possible, they said, to work out how much pollution there was in the air, nor how
much more pollution could be absorbed safely in the future.
But they do know for certain that sulphur dioxide levels are frequently above South Africa’s
outdated limits – and at times they are two to four times higher than the World Health
Organisation’s more stringent standards.
But sulphur dioxide (which has been linked to increased lung cancer cases in a study of nonsmoking Californian residents) is just one of the pollutants. What about the nastier stuff which
is put into the air by south Durban’s myriad big and small industries?
What about benzene, for example, which is a proven carcinogen? What about xylene,
chromium VI, cadmium and hexavalent chromium, which can also cause cancer or major
health problems?
Other possible sources of pollution, according to the CSIR, are phenols, aldehydes,
hydrocarbons, mercury, acetone and dioxins, to name just a few.
And when you mix these together and combine them with pollution from motor vehicles and
other sources, you get a very nasty little cocktail of pollutants.
No tests have been done on this cocktail effect in Durban.
There are laws which are intended to control air pollution, but the Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act dates back to 1965 and there are no legally enforceable
ambient air quality standards. Most of the air pollution estimates also come from the major
polluters themselves, because the system of control is based on “cost-effective” British
legislation.
On the ground, the principle of cost-effectiveness has translated into a single air pollution
officer keeping a check on polluters throughout KZN for more than a decade. Recently,
however, the ranks of the inspectorate swelled to two full-time government inspectors,
supplemented by a small band of municipal inspectors.
But perhaps the biggest weakness of the system, said the CSIR, was that there was no
management of the “total” air pollution load. In other words, individual polluters might be
controlled to some limited extent – but there was no limit on the overall pollution from a
multiplicity of sources.
Yet despite these glaring shortfalls in air pollution monitoring, a three-year strategic
environmental assessment study commissioned by the metro council recommended recently
that the city should promote massive petro-chemical expansion and industrial development in
south Durban.
88
Community spokesmen tore their hair out in frustration. Durban had spent R2 million on the
SEA study to establish the environmental impact of future industrial development in this area
– but a human health study apparently fell “outside the scope of the study”.
For people like Mr Bobby Peek and Mr Rory O’Connor, of the South Durban Community
Environmental Alliance, this is an unacceptable situation.
The alliance says it supports job-creation and economic growth, but insists that further
development cannot be at the cost of neighbouring residents.
Mr Peek, director of the environmental justice body groundWork, says south Durban is
currently bearing the brunt of air pollution from industry, but Durban city centre will not be
spared as pollution knows no boundaries.
“If sulphur dioxide, benzene and other chemicals are found in high concentrations in south
Durban, then it is a short distance for them to be blown over the bay. A city centre that
becomes known for its high levels of toxins with associated health impacts is not going to be a
top tourist destination,” he said.
(The Mercury 13 September 2000)
89
APPENDIX 9
The right to reply
THE two fuel refineries, Sapref and Engen, are by far the biggest single industrial air polluters
in south Durban.
But they are not alone. If recent estimates by a private consultancy are accepted, then petrol
and diesel motor vehicles would take the pollution crown for several forms of pollution, with
further muck coming from nearly 150 smaller companies, planes, ships, trains, service station
fumes and the tanker storage area at Island View.
However, the contentious estimates on motor vehicle pollution in south Durban by the
Ecoserv consultancy are still being reviewed because they are based on guesstimates which
may inflate their contribution in relation to industry.
Other major air polluters identified in the Ecoserv study include the Mondi Paper company at
Merebank, Tongaat Hulett Refineries, NCP Isipingo, Sasol Fibres, Dunlop and SA Breweries.
There are also several chemical companies scattered throughout the area.
Because of the large number of companies involved, only a limited number have been asked
to respond on the pollution issue.
Sapref and Engen acknowledge their major role in certain types of pollution and were willing
to discuss the issue, but they believe they are singled out frequently for undue focus. They are
also planning to spend several million rands over the next few years to reduce air pollution,
including measures that will benefit them economically.
Both companies deny they are causing cancer and other health problems in neighbouring
residential communities, but concede there are major information gaps about human health
nearby. This includes recent evidence from the US which suggests that fuel refineries and
chemical industries may be a significant source of dioxins, a deadly group of chemicals which
cause cancer and other health problems at extremely low levels.
The refineries admit they are not required by South African law to measure for dioxin
pollution, and they cannot guarantee they do not produce dioxins. Engen admits some of its
processes may produce dioxins and is currently investigating further to take corrective action
if necessary. Sapref is not willing to speculate on the issue.
While the two refineries have similar views on air pollution and human health in south
Durban, these are some of their individual responses to questions posed by The Mercury.
mondi
The Mondi Paper mill in Merebank is one of the largest single-site mills in the world.
General manager John Barton says pollution in south Durban has been a major concern to
residents and industry for many years and he feels his company is “a non-smoker sitting in a
room full of smokers . . . We don’t want to be associated with the bad side of the southern
basin”.
But as a “non-smoker” the mill is, nevertheless, the third largest sulphur dioxide polluter (3
000 tons a year) and a major source of nitrogen oxides (more than 700 tons a year).
“A clear demonstration of Mondi’s commitment to responsible environmental operation,”
says Mr Barton, “was demonstrated by our recent accreditation to ISO 14001, which requires
continuous improvement in environmental performance and . . . the implementation of sound
environmental practices.”
He says pulp at Mondi Paper is produced mechanically and not chemically.
Wood is separated into fibres by means of grinding and refining and not by the addition of
chemicals. “Chlorine bleaching forms part of the chemical pulping process, which is not used
90
at Mondi Paper. Since the origin of dioxins is in the chlorine-based bleaching operations,
there are no dioxin emissions from our plant.
“We don’t have chlorine and most of the emissions you see from our factory is just water
blown off as steam.” (It should be noted, however, that dioxin monitoring is not compulsory
in South Africa and, according to a list of Mondi Paper chemical inputs obtained by The
Mercury, the mill uses an estimated 8,7 tons of chlorine a year.) He said Mondi had just
converted one of the oil-fired boilers to a gas-fired boiler, which was expected to reduce
sulphur dioxide emissions by about 20%.
On the health issue, Mr Barton said: “I would hesitate to comment on community health since
I do not claim to be an expert in this field. But I would like to emphasise that the mechanical
pulping of wood and the paper-making process do not contribute to the potentially
carcinogenic emissions which are of such great concern to us.”
Engen
ENGEN’s refinery in Wentworth is one of the oldest refineries in South Africa and is
surrounded on every side by residential areas. Originally known as Stanvac, and later as the
Mobil refinery, it was built in 1954 and is at present owned by the Malaysian group Petronas.
It employs 510 permanent staff and about 250 contract workers and can refine up to 105 000
barrels of crude oil a day.
Recently it announced a plan to reduce air pollution by spending R450 million over the next
five years. The intention is to replace its high sulphur content refinery fuel with cleanerburning methane gas from Sasol.
The refinery hopes this plan will reduce its sulphur dioxide pollution from 35 tons a day to 18
tons a day. The gas deal should also reduce its nitrogen oxide pollution by almost three
quarters and halve its particulate matter (soot and ash) pollution.
It is also spending R2 million to cover up its effluent treatment area, which has been a major
source of odours and volatile organic vapours, including benzene.
What about the issue of cancer and the need for a health study in the neighbouring
community?
“We agree that claims of a high incidence of cancer in south Durban need to be investigated
thoroughly and scientifically. We strongly support independent research, but it is important
that the communities are not casually dismissed nor unnecessarily worried by sensationalism
that has no scientific basis.”
It agrees that it has a long way to go in improving a history of poor relationships with the
community.
“The problem is that the public perceives that most pollution comes from industries. This is in
spite of the reality that can be seen across Durban every winter morning.
“Although worse in south Durban, the pollution is widespread and is not only from factories.
“Most other countries and big cities accept that vehicle emissions are a major problem and
have taken steps to reduce it.
“One of our serious concerns is that the refinery will reduce its emissions by massive amounts
but the public will not see any difference as it will be masked by all the other pollution.”
Nevertheless, Engen says it is willing to make an “appropriate and fair contribution” to a
human health study.
The company is vague about expansion plans, saying that it might expand “some time in the
future”.
It has also challenged reports that high concentrations of benzene were detected outside the
refinery recently by the American “bucket brigade”. Engen contends that the sample of 30
91
parts per billion fell within South African guidelines, that the single sample was taken under
“abnormal conditions” when the plant was shutting down and it disputes the accuracy of the
test and analysis.
“Our gravest concern with the ‘bucket brigade’ sample is that it does not compare apples with
apples.
“We also wish to state clearly that no one in the community is, or has been, exposed to
dangerous levels of benzene emanating from the Engen refinery.”
Challenged on how it could offer such categoric assurances when there was a paucity of
benzene data from outside the refinery – and when the recent Bucket Brigade sample
indicated high readings – Engen argued that levels inside the refinery met local standards “so
levels outside the boundary will be lower”.
However, Engen failed to produce any historic or current benzene measurement data from
either inside or immediately outside the refinery.
Sapref
The Sapref refinery next to Durban international airport is owned by Shell and BP and dates
back to the 1960s.
It is the largest crude oil refinery in the country and employs about 650 staff and about 500
contractors. It has the capacity to process 185 000 barrels of crude a day.
It hopes to build a new sulphur recovery plant soon, as existing units date back to 1966 and
1976. Both are loaded to their maximum capacity, and the older one is on its last legs.
Nevertheless, Sapref says it has cut sulphur dioxide (SO2) pollution by 30% to roughly 37
tons a day.
“Under certain weather and operating conditions, and when combined with other pollution
sources in the valley (including vehicles), we acknowledge that our SO2 emissions could
contribute to the overall impact on people with respiratory ailments.”
The company says it has spent about R100 million on “environmental improvements” since
1995, but acknowledges that World Health Organisation standards for SO2 pollution are
exceeded periodically.
“Evidence suggests we are a contributor to those exceedances, but we are committed to
reducing exceedances to the point that they cease altogether.”
It also concedes that volatile organic compound (VOC) pollution from its Island View storage
tanks could “affect” neighbouring communities, but contends that cars are the biggest culprits
for VOC pollution.
“To put this in context, a person walking along a moderately busy road near Sapref would be
more exposed to VOC pollution from passing vehicles than from the refinery.”
Challenged on the scientific basis for this claim, Sapref said the calculation was based on the
recent Ecoserv emission report (the accuracy of which has been disputed by communities).
“We are very aware of the environmental impact of our refinery – but we do not and will not
engage in activities which we believe could be linked to cancer.
“It is universally acknowledged that it is extremely difficult to scientifically link health
problems in any specific area to pollutants from specific sources. Data contained in casual
health surveys, which do not include factors such as other pollutants, living conditions and
habits of communities, is not conclusive and should be cautiously viewed.”
Sapref says the economic downturn in the Far East has delayed expansion plans “until
sometime after 2005”.
92
The company is not opposed to legal penalties if it exceeds its pollution permit levels, but
argues that fines for ground-level exceedances are difficult to apply justly if the pollution
source is not identified accurately.
“We are not opposed to a health study and would abide by its findings if they were
conclusive. While we expect the authorities to utilise the rates and taxes we pay to fund a
health study, we would welcome an invitation to contribute towards the costs.”
However, Sapref contends there is no evidence that its pollution is a direct cause of
respiratory problems.
(The Mercury 14 September 2000)
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APPENDIX 10
Moosa demands action over Durban pollution
Call for poison gas reduction
TONY CARNIE
NATIONAL Environment Minister Valli Moosa jetted to Durban yesterday demanding
“drastic reductions” in industrial poison gas and to announce an eight-point strategy to curb
air pollution.
Though he raised the possibility of raising extra money overseas, from local taxpayers or from
the city’s biggest industrial polluters, Mr Moosa did not announce clear time-frames or
financial commitments to turn his promises into reality.
He also steered clear of recent calls for the temporary closure of polluting industries in south
Durban or a moratorium on further industrial expansion in the area.
However, he has asked officials for a progress report within six weeks and has given an
assurance to anxious south Durban communities that they would not be removed “forcibly” to
make way for new industry.
He also accepted the need to conduct a comprehensive study which compared the human
health problems in the area with other, less polluted, neighbourhoods.
His visit follows long-standing complaints by the local community, as well as a recent
Mercury investigation which indicated unusually high numbers of cancer cases in children,
and possibly adults.
He spent most of the morning in discussion with national, provincial and local government
officials, local community groups and industry representatives as well as Durban metro mayor
Obed Mlaba and provincial Environment Minister Narend Singh.
Afterwards, Mr Moosa said it was imperative to rehabilitate the polluted atmosphere and “to
make it possible for people to continue to live there and to enjoy their fundamental human
right” to an environment which did not harm their health.
Condemning the “reckless and inhumane development planning which has landed us with
these problems”, Mr Moosa said the task of creating a healthy living environment in south
Durban would not be easy.
However, he has proposed several measures, including:
o Revising pollution standards for sulphur dioxide and other poisonous gases to bring them
into line with World Health Organisation standards; to protect community health through
“drastic reductions” in ground-level industrial pollution and to place “onerous” new
restrictions on industry.
o Improving air pollution monitoring systems and reducing the government’s reliance on
information supplied by polluters.
o Conducting a health risk assessment based on a survey of chemical pollutants.
o Conducting an epidemiological study which examines the health impacts on people in south
Durban and comparing this information with other city areas.
o Improving levels of enforcement and legal sanctions either through steeper fines, jail terms
or the closure of companies.
o A possible ban on burning certain “dirty fuels” by industry.
o New regulations to restrict coal-burning for industrial purposes in Durban south.
o New measures to reduce chemical vapour leaks from the Island View chemical complex, the
largest chemical storage area in Africa, located at the base of the Bluff.
His deputy, Mrs Rejoice Mabhudafasi, also suggested a high-level quarterly meeting with
local communities.
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Asked where the money would come from to implement the proposals, Mr Moosa said he was
“heartened by the depth of concern” from fellow cabinet ministers and members of parliament
on the need to curb pollution.
Apart from seeking support from his cabinet colleagues and looking for international funds,
Mr Moosa said industry in south Durban “should bear the primary responsibility for funding
what we need to do” to ensure that taxpayers in the rest of the country did not subsidise
industry indirectly.
Though his announcements received a cautious welcome from local community groups, longstanding environmental justice campaigner Bobby Peek expressed concern that funding by
industry should not lead to a situation of “privatised pollution control”.
Rather, the government should consider ways of earmarking taxes by major polluters to tackle
pollution control, by introducing stiffer fines or by charging companies a pollution permit
application fee.
“All of the correct things were said today, but how does one deliver on these things? We
welcome the commitments, but the community will have to keep up the pressure to get where
we want to,” he said.
(The Mercury 20 September 2000)
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APPENDIX 11
‘We’ve had enough’
Two communities in the south Durban basin, living side by side, are in a quandary. Some of
their children are slowly dying, yet they cannot relocate their families as their breadwinners
work for the giants accused of polluting them. Doreen Premdev and Suthentira Govender
report
In an all-out bid to tackle the chronic air pollution problem plaguing the south Durban basin,
Settlers Primary school, sandwiched between three major industries in Merewent, is to be
used as a test case when the community takes the matter to court.
This emerged at a mass meeting in the Merebank community hall on Thursday night, where
more than 150 angry residents demanded immediate action from environment minister Valli
Moosa. One thing was made quite clear: Residents did not want to hear talk about relocating
their homes.
An elderly resident remarked: “We will live here and die here.”
The community, fed up with empty promises made by the government and industry to
eradicate pollution, is threatening to stage protests and blockades at oil refineries in the area,
and to stop paying rates if their pleas for government intervention fall on deaf ears.
The community, in conjunction with the Merebank Ratepayers Association and the South
Durban Community Environmental Alliance, resolved to test the court process in terms of
Settlers Primary.
Lawrence Vartharajulu, pollution control officer and teacher at the school, painted a bleak
picture.
“We are sandwiched between Sapref, Mondi and Engen. When the wind blows from a
northerly or southerly direction, the school stands no chance,” he said. “The culture of
learning and teaching here is being severely hampered because of the pollution effects.
“There is a constant unpleasant odour permeating the classrooms which is affecting both
pupils and teachers. Lessons are interrupted almost daily by pupils’ complaining of burning
sensations in their eyes and noses, sore throats, nausea and severe headaches.
Dioxide
“These are symptoms of exposure to sulphur dioxide, which is being emitted by industries
surrounding the school. Teachers, too, are bearing the brunt of pollution exposure. Two of
them have been booked off sick by their doctors for three weeks.”
They were suffering from chronic laryngitis, respiratory problems, severe headaches and
bronchial pneumonia, which doctors had attributed to pollution, he said.
“Since May this year, we have lodged 34 serious complaints with industries. Representatives
of the companies releasing pollutants have visited the school to monitor the situation, but
there has been lots of talk and simply no action.”
Vartharajulu said the children’s constitutional right to a pollution-free environment had been
infringed as well as their right to problem-free education.
Sapref communications manager Margaret Rowe said the company was acutely aware of the
alleged possibility that, depending on the wind direction, Settlers Primary school could be
affected by emissions from its refinery chimneys.
“We are monitoring emissions with the South Durban Sulphur Dioxide Committee to pinpoint
the exact emission source and are continuing to examine all ways of reducing refinery
emissions as a priority,” Rowe said.
David Goldstone, an Engen representative at Thursday’s meeting, said the company was
committed to dealing with the situation.
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“Engen has invested R450 million to significantly reduce the emissions. Engen employees
living in the area are concerned about their children’s health. Pressure is being exerted within
the company to reduce emissions,” he said.
(Sunday Tribune 24 September 2000)
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APPENDIX 12
Refinery bosses apologise for pollution
MERCURY REPORTER
DURBAN fuel refinery bosses came in for strong criticism and were forced to apologise for
their pollution at a meeting in Merebank this week.
The meeting was convened by local refinery managers to outline their plans for pollution
reduction in south Durban residential areas.
But once the meeting was under way, it became clear that Sapref chief Richard Parkes and his
Engen counterpart, Mr John Mackey, were not going to have an easy ride.
Community groups were initially angry that the refineries had tried to by-pass them by
convening a public meeting without consultation.
And it did not help matters that the venue – Settlers Primary School in Dinapur Road – had
been gassed by clouds of sulphur dioxide and other gases just hours before the meeting on
Wednesday.
Settlers school teacher Lawrence Vartharajalu said classes had been disrupted frequently
because of air pollution.
Sometimes the smells were bad enough to induce complaints of nausea, dizziness, headaches,
breathing problems and even vomiting.
“Wednesday was the worst day. We had between 60 and 80 pupils complaining of these
symptoms,” he said.
He wanted to know what the refineries would do to make life more bearable in the coming
summer months when windows would have to be shut to keep out pollution.
Mr Parkes stood up immediately to express his regret over the incident, but Montclair resident
and environmental activist Chris Albertyn said regrets were all very well, but he wanted to
hear an unconditional apology.
Merebank physician Barry Seetharam said the refineries should also know that the community
was investigating the option of suing industry for billions.
The community was tired of lies and offers of free curry and rice, he said.
Responding, Mr Parkes apologised for the latest incident and said there was no way he was
trying to duck an apology.
“I have children of my own and I express regret without reservation for the discomfort
experienced today because of our activities. We are trying to make a commitment to the
economy of South Africa, but we can’t (reduce pollution) overnight.”
Dr Seetharam thanked Sapref for its apology but said the wound-healing process had not gone
far enough, and refineries needed to apologise for at least 35 years of pollution.
Mr Mackey then stood up to apologise on his company’s behalf.
When Mr Parkes and Mr Mackey eventually took the floor for their formal presentations, they
outlined measures to reduce emission levels through a variety of measures – from cleaner fuel
sources to new secondary seals on floating roof tanks and a voluntary environmental
management co-operative agreement (EMCA).
But Mr Albertyn, who helped to negotiate new environmental laws on behalf of nongovernment organisations, expressed concern that EMCA agreements in other parts of the
world were not working, particularly if they were not enforceable legally.
Mr Parkes said he was happy for there to be fines for exceeding ground-level emissions, but
in practice it was difficult to prove who was responsible where a number of polluting
industries were located close to each other.
“We can’t expect you to trust us overnight. But it’s quite possible for us to live in harmony.”
(The Mercury 6 October 2000)
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