Miljö ute, miljö inne : en intervjustudie om miljöjournalisters förutsättningar att nå sina journalistiska ideal

Sammanfattning: Environmental issues are continuously getting more attention in the media. A great part of the media content about environmental issues is produced by environmental journalists working both in public service and commercial media organizations. In order to identify the potential and pitfalls of environmental journalism, this study focuses on exploring the journalistic values of environmental journalists, and how they experience that their working conditions allow them to reach their ideal reporting. Through interviews with seven environmental journalists working in six different news organizations, this study concludes that the environmental journalist’s values largely correspond to previous studies of journalist’s values in Sweden, where objectivity and autonomy is highly valued. Furthermore, investigative journalism was seen as both the most important, and the most lacking, value in environmental journalism. The prerequisites for the journalists to produce material according to their ideals were identified in all five levels of the Hierarchy of Influences model, with the main obstacles being high demands of productivity, lack of knowledge in the organization and strategic communication from lobby groups. Despite journalists working within a frame of limitations in their own organization, as well as in the society, the interviewed journalists were generally satisfied with their working conditions, which makes it all the more interesting for future studies to look further into environmental content produced by journalists who are not specified in the field.