No more glowing press coverage for green?

Glowing coverage of corporate greening initiatives is coming to an end, pens Kate Galbraith in the International Herald Tribune. Galbraith, Energy and environment reporter for the Texas Tribune, writes:

Journalists are a little less wide-eyed, and a little more picky. The cutting-edge coverage today does not typically revolve around the greening of fill-in-the-blank company. Instead, topics like “Who’s not going green?” and “What are the difficulties of going green?” are being seen more frequently...Going green, in other words, became so mainstream that it was no longer big news.

Galbraith calls it a "natural evolution" in reporting and my experience in the ethanol industry leads me to concur. As I've said before, journalists' second favorite story goes something like this: "There's this new thing you've never heard of, but it's going to make you healthy, wealthy and wise while saving the economy, the environment and the world." That's often closely followed by their favorite story: "Remember that new thing I told you about? It's actually robbing you blind, making you stupid and ultimately killing you while destroying the economy, the environment and indeed, the world."

Perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration (which I occasionally am guilty of), but the broader principle fits sustainability news. If you look at where Galbraith sees coverage of green issues heading, it's along the lines of the latter storyline in the preceding paragraph. Journalists are increasingly looking at who is not going green or what the challenges are for companies or industries that want to go green. They're also looking at the "challenges facing renewable energy" rather than carbon offsets or commitments to renewable power.

Are there still opportunities for stories that cast corporate sustainability initiatives in a positive light? Yes. Galbraith sees those stories as "man-bites-dog" (e.g. renewable energy in Texas) or large scale (Walmart). Read the entire article and then follow Galbraith, an excellent and seasoned green journalist, on Twitter to keep learning. To find more reporters like her, join the 222 other followers of my green journalists list on Twitter.

How about your experiences? Are you finding reporters lest receptive to corporate sustainability news? Let me know in the comments below.