Dot eco domain push hinders communication, reinforces need for journalists who cover the environment
By David Poulson
So Al Gore is backing a move to create a new top level .eco domain name.
This strikes me as an environmental communications disaster - and an excellent example of why we need journalists who report on the environment.
The folks pushing for the annointing of .eco say it should be
“…established for individuals to express their support for environmental causes, for companies to promote their environmental initiatives, and for environmental organizations to maintain their websites in a namespace that is more relevant to their core missions.”
They say their goal is to “…increase awareness of ecological issues and to fund scientific initiatives and research related to the environment.”
Maybe. But here’s my gripe: Just whose awareness are we increasing? This sounds an awful lot like preaching to the choir. Like it or not, you slap “eco” on anything - let alone something as high profile as a top level domain - and you’ve immediately polarized your audience.
It has a tremendous appeal to certain consumers of news and information. For others, it inspires eye-rolling disdain for yet another “greenie” initiative - one now linked to the even more polarizing Al Gore.
How many people suspicious of the legitimacy of environmental issues will turn to a .eco domain for information?
That’s why journalists who cover the environment are needed more than ever.
I’ve chosen my words carefully here. We need journalists who cover the environment, not environmental journalists. The environment is too important to leave to a dwindling caste of environmental reporters, regardless of their significant skills. The environment transcends society. It should also transcend beat structure.
If you’re a reporter of any kind, you need to include the environmental angle of what you cover. It is too important not to.
Journalists of all stripes work at the interface of advocates and eye-rollers. We evaluate information and stitch together our best shot at truth, accuracy and a full accounting of what’s at stake.
Heaven knows we fail. And certainly there are well-documented cases of the dangers of attempting to inject a false and misleading balance into what we do. I don’t endorse that.
But if the environment is as important of a beat as knowledgeable people claim, then news of it can’t be confined to those who already get it.
The role of the journalist is to chisel away at barriers to understanding. The Internet wonderfully makes available a tremendous amount of information which should enhance that understanding. But it also allows us to select news and information that comfortably reinforces our pre-conceived notions.
Journalists afflict the comfortable.
Creation of a .eco domain strikes me as yet another exercise in comfortable high-profile silo building.
Journalists should be in the business of tearing those down.
March 7th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I’m not sure we couldn’t use more “environmental journalists,” which I define as journalists who specialize in covering the environment. They’re less likely to be spun in the maelstrom of conflicting claims in this area. But I agree with your overall point: with the wider community not that engaged in environmental issues, what’s needed are for journalists of all types, including citizen journalists, to communicate why those issues matter.
March 7th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Agreed. I just fear that we are at a point where news organizations are reluctant to invest resources in that manner. One way to compensate (better yet, augment) is to work the environmental angle across the newsroom.
I think to some extent that has already happened. I’d like to see a study that looked over time at the number of environmental reporters and the amount of environmental coverage. I wonder if we’ve seen a decline in enviornmental reporters but a rise in environmental coverage.
But that’s a messy study - defining an environmental reporter, defining an environmental stoy. And then, too, you’re looking merely at quantity, not quality.
March 7th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
I also have to wonder, what’s to stop it from being another greenwashing tool? http://www.exxonmobil.eco could be a bunch of hogwash without proper oversight.
March 7th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Actually, I fail to see any reason for concern about .eco. Now that ICANN is expanding the roster of domain-name extensions, .eco merely acts as a kind of tag, to help people establish and brand websites appropriately. Do you avoid a site because it has a .com, or visit one purely because it is .org? I fail to see how establishing .eco as one of the many new domain extensions coming in any way builds a silo. Does tagging a story with “environment” exclude people? No, it helps people find stories they care about.
March 7th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
[...] Read the rest here: Cover the Planet » Blog Archive » Dot eco domain push hinders … [...]
March 7th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Thanks Dave for bringing this to my attention. I put it up on my blog as well. I think a different concern I’d have with this “.eco” thing is, where are the boundaries for such a domain? What’s to prevent Big Coal from establishing http://www.cleancoal.eco. I just think .eco can be another avenue for green washing.
March 7th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Bonnie,
I hope you’re right. I just think that .eco carries a lot of baggage - unlike .com or .org. I fear that the very people most in need of reading something tagged .eco won’t bother to click.
Dave
March 7th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
[...] The rest is here: Dot eco domain push hinders communication, reinforces need for … [...]
March 15th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
I believe the most compelling reason to establish a dot eco is to provide a domain space that encourages those interested in environmental issues to find an encampment. I see the .eco tld community being empowered to police and help regulate those corporations not worthy. Let these businesses stick to their .com site and leave science, environmental NGO’s, like-minded (though a diverse sub-set) individuals, and corporations accept the challenge to abandon their archaic, consumptive, and damaging practices and products. We need a common meeting place and those that whine and criticize should get out of the way…
Regarding the ability of journalist that cover the environment…how could dot eco be restrictive? In fact, wouldn’t dot eco draw more individuals to a common location where journalism would flourish? I see the way we report on our state of the environment as becoming increasing diluted and difficult to flush out. Why wouldn’t dot eco provide many portals for many journalists wanting to convey the health of the planet? Let’s build readership by supporting this novel idea.