Il est des nouvelles qui disent beaucoup de l’état du monde. Ainsi de la disparition brutale du service Environnement de l’un des plus grands journaux de la planète, le New York Times. Lancé en 1851, le NYT (ici) a reçu près de 100 prix Pulitzer (ici) au long de son histoire, et malgré quelques retentissantes boulettes, il reste une référence mondiale. Publiant 1 600 000 exemplaires pendant la semaine – dont plus de la moitié en ligne -, il atteint les deux millions le dimanche, qui voit les rues des grandes villes de l’Est envahies de lecteurs ployant sous les poids de leur journal. Ce jour-là, le NYT pèse presque un kilo. Essayez donc de trimballer un journal d’un poids pareil.
Est-ce un bon journal ? Qu’est-ce qu’un bon journal ? J’y ai lu, sans être aucunement un habitué, de remarquables articles. Vraiment. Mais dans le même temps, comment ne pas voir ce qui n’y figure pas ? Ainsi que la totalité de la presse occidentale, le NYT est incapable de rendre compte de l’événement le plus important de tous les temps humains, qui est la crise écologique. Visiblement, cela ne va pas s’arranger, car les sept journalistes et les deux éditeurs du service Environnement viennent d’être dispersés dans d’autres rubriques (ici) du quotidien. Plus de service Environnement au NYT !
Dans l’article du Guardian que je signale dans la phrase précédente, l’un des chefs du NYT tente d’expliquer pourquoi. Avant de lui donner la parole, deux mots sur ce type, Dean Baquet. C’est un Black. Un type visiblement sympa qui a grandi à La Nouvelle Orléans, où il a commencé sa carrière de journaliste. Si je dis sympa, c’est parce que tout indique que cet homme appartient à la gauche morale américaine, celle qui se préoccupe des minorités, des violences policières, de la corruption (ici). La manière dont il justifie dans The Guardian le démantèlement du service Environnement est à lire dans ce contexte-là. Un chef du Monde ou de L’Obs sortirait les mêmes conneries. Qui commencent par une ruse habituelle : « To both me and Jill [Abramson, son big boss], coverage of the environment is what separates the New York Times from other papers ». Pour lui et pour Jim Abramson, son patron, la couverture des questions d’environnement est ce qui différencie le NYT de ses concurrents . C’est sans doute pour cela qu’on s’en sépare !
Mais non. Baquet est un gars malin, a smart guy. Il arrête la rubrique au motif que c’est tellement, tellement important – et complexe – qu’il faut réintégrer les compétences des sept journalistes et des deux éditeurs dans la rédaction générale. Quel splendide jésuitisme ! On noie ceux qu’on vient de naufrager en toute conscience, mais on prétend ainsi qu’ils parviendront à traverser l’Atlantique à la nage. Oui, splendide manœuvre. Je peux vous dire, par expérience, qu’il s’agit d’une défaite, d’une retraite et même d’une déroute en rase campagne. Quand un journaliste intéressé par l’écologie se retrouve dans un service où sont suivis les affaires sérieuses du monde – on les connaît depuis que nous sommes nés -, il n’a pas une chance sur 100 de faire passer ses sujets à des places autres que subalternes. Ce n’est pas même une question de pouvoir, mais de culture.
La quasi-totalité des cadres de la presse ignorent et veulent continuer à tout ignorer de la crise écologique. Ils vivent – bien – dans un monde qui disparaît, mais ils s’en foutent, car ils sont aussi efficaces dans le déni que ces femmes enceintes qui parviennent à (se) cacher leur grossesse jusqu’à son terme. Ce qui arrive aujourd’hui au NYT peut aisément se produire demain au Monde ou ailleurs. Dans tous les cas, la disparition du service Environnement du NYT est une annonce en clair : pour savoir ce qui se passe sur Terre, il va falloir réinventer la presse. Tout le reste aussi, j’en suis bien d’accord. Mais la presse avec.
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The Guardian le 11 janvier 2013
New York Times dismantles environment desk
Nine-person team created in 2009 to be disbanded in move described as ‘worrying’, but journalists expected to retain jobs
The New York Times will close its environment desk in the next few weeks and assign its seven reporters and two editors to other departments. The positions of environment editor and deputy environment editor are being eliminated. No decision has been made about the fate of the Green Blog, which is edited from the environment desk.
« It wasn’t a decision we made lightly, » said Dean Baquet, the paper’s managing editor for news operations. « To both me and Jill [Abramson, executive editor], coverage of the environment is what separates the New York Times from other papers. We devote a lot of resources to it, now more than ever. We have not lost any desire for environmental coverage. This is purely a structural matter. »
On Dec. 3 the Times announced that it was offering buyouts to 30 newsroom managers in an effort to reduce newsroom expenses. But Baquet said the decision to dismantle the environment desk wasn’t linked to budgetary concerns and that no one is expected to lose his or her job.
Instead, Baquet said the change was prompted by the shifting interdisciplinary landscape of news reporting. When the desk was created in early 2009, the environmental beat was largely seen as « singular and isolated, » he said. It was pre-fracking and pre-economic collapse. But today, environmental stories are « partly business, economic, national or local, among other subjects, » Baquet said. « They are more complex. We need to have people working on the different desks that can cover different parts of the story. »
The environmental reporters were told of the decision on Wednesday. Baquet said he will meet with each of them to discuss their next assignments and the future of their beats. No decision has been made about the fate of the Green Blog, the online site for the Times’ daily coverage of energy and environment news.
The paper did a similar restructuring of its education desk a few months ago. Baquet said editors are also considering whether religion reporting could benefit from this type of change.
News that the New York Times is closing its environmental desk comes just a week after The Daily Climate reported that worldwide coverage of climate change continued a three-year slide in 2012—and that among the five largest U.S. dailies, the Times published the most stories and had the biggest increase in coverage. Times managing editor Glenn Kramon told The Daily Climate that « climate change is one of the few subjects so important that we need to be oblivious to cycles and just cover it as hard as we can all the time. »
« I ask myself, ‘In 20 years, what will we be proudest that we addressed, and where will we scratch our head and say why didn’t we focus more on that?' » Kramon said.
On Thursday, Kramon responded to questions from InsideClimate News in an email. « Fortunately, we still have those reporters who cover climate change so well, and we expect to cover the subject just as aggressively going forward, » he said.
Beth Parke, executive director of the Society of Environmental Journalists, said that while solid environmental coverage doesn’t always require a dedicated team, the Times’ decision is « worrying. »
« Dedicated teams bring strength and consistency to the task of covering environment-related issues, » she said. « It’s always a huge loss to see them dismantled … It’s not necessarily a weakening to change organizational structure, but it does seem to be a bad sign. I will be watching closely what happens next. »
Dan Fagin, a longtime science journalist and director of the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University, said the Times’ decision was « disappointing. » He said the environmental desk « has done a terrific job and produced outstanding work » in large part because its editors and reporters could make covering the environment their sole responsibility.
« The New York Times has too much editorial integrity to abandon its environmental coverage completely, » said Fagin, who serves on the InsideClimate News advisory board. « But if you don’t have the editorial structure to support the kind of commitment needed to do both daily coverage and deeper investigative and explanatory work, it is hard to imagine that you could keep the same level of intensity. »
Baquet said it’s up to him to make sure the Times’ environmental coverage doesn’t falter. « My goal is to make sure we’re producing the same level of work, » he said. It « is too important of a topic to let it slip. »
Bill Keller, the Times’ former executive editor, created the environmental desk in 2009 and hired Sandy Keenan as its editor. Under Keenan, who still holds the job and is being reassigned, the desk has tackled complex and controversial subjects. In 2012, Justin Gillis won the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism with a 10-part series, « Temperatures Rising, » showing the consequences of global warming. A few months before Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York City, a story by Mireya Navarro warned that the city was moving too slowly in its preparations for rising seas and increasingly severe storms. After the storm, Gillis and Felicity Barringer wrote a story questioning the wisdom of rebuilding coastal areas that are repeatedly destroyed by natural disasters.