Getting around the problem : an intensive study of the strategic nature of environmental journalists in Australia

This thesis examines environmental journalists, and the nature of their response to a set of perceived constraints within their professional context. Much of the literature on the subject to date would portray journalists as simply a channel through which previously screened information would be sent. The journalist, in this interpretation, is reduced to a mere transport device - one uninvolved in the manufacture and negotiation of that which we see as news. This study refutes this viewpoint, holding instead that the environmental journalist, operating from the platform of a "round", has internalised a set of strategic methodologies that both acknowledge the constraints and work to circumvent them. Indeed, the title "Getting Around the Problem", was borrowed from a common response from those in the sample set. The respondents collectively acknowledged the existence of a set of unique constraints, but always maintained there was a way to "get around the problem". The study, operating at an intensive level of scrutiny, shows evidence of these constraints, explains their genesis, and demonstrates the journalists' own responses. Implicit in this study is the idea that journalists do in fact operate from within a managed system, but still continue, despite this fact, to retain a significant degree of professional autonomy.