CONTRIBUTION
Miguel Ángel Ruiz Parra (Águilas, Murcia, 1969) is the head of environmental news at La Verdad, a daily newspaper based in the Murcia region that forms part of the Vocento group. The jury recognized him for this career spanning over three decades, with special mention for “the importance of environmental reporting at local level in creating an informed and considered public opinion that can aid in the defense of the environment.”
“Environmental reporting was hard to get into when I was starting out,” remarked the awardee in an interview granted after hearing of the award. “What was seen as important back then was news reports, politics, of course, and sports. But because of my personal love of nature, I always knew that there were stories out there that would interest our readers. I began writing ‘feel-good’ pieces on species and natural spaces, which served as a kind of Trojan horse so I could start covering the environment in a more transversal, systematic way. And it soon became clear that the issues at stake were vital for the region. Issues like water management, land management, air quality, how we live in our cities…”
He has covered all these topics since the early 1990s, when, as he recalls, “not even the big national media carried environment news on a regular basis. Today could not be more different. The paper’s current management are fully behind us to the extent that environmental news has become a key content, often dominating the front page. For thirteen years, we have had an editorial team that promotes and supports this strategy, and it has also gone down well with our readers, who from the start have proved eager to consume environmental news, not just the feel-good stories but also articles about ‘hard’ issues like pollution or climate change.”
It is precisely the pollution and degradation of a local ecosystem, the Mar Menor, that has occupied much of La Verdad’s environmental attention: “The lagoon has been in the paper almost every day for the past seven years, when the eutrophication crisis broke, causing what became known as the ‘green soup’. And the news is never good.” Journalists from Spain and the world over have visited the region to report on the state of the Mar Menor. The difference between how they tell it and how Ruiz Parra tells it is, for him, the key strength of local reporting: “Having direct contact with the issue we are writing about. We state plainly that this is a crisis whose root cause is economic activity: pollution due to chemical fertilizers from agriculture and livestock farming, uncontrolled urban expansion since the 1970s, waste from the mines that were worked there until the 1950s, motor boats and sewage discharge. We describe the problems and name those responsible, and for a regional newspaper that has to work with all the main actors in the region… that can mean a lot of pressure. Also – another trait of local environmental reporting – when I cover the Mar Menor I bring to bear personal, social and cultural factors that I share with the local community. It’s a way to engage the readership, and get them on your side, but it’s also a big responsibility.”
In the awardee journalist’s experience, local news can become big enough to change legislation. “We kept up a steady barrage of news in the paper, which along with the mass mobilization, including demonstrations of over 50,000 people, was certainly behind the passage of the Mar Menor Conservation and Protection Act. And in some cases now before the courts, like that involving nitrate pollution of the Mar Menor from illegal desalination plants – known as the Topillo case – both the public and private prosecution have relied as documentary evidence on material we published, both news items and features, concerning the aggressions suffered by the Mar Menor. Material, I should add, that dates from way back before 2016.”
One of the biggest changes with respect to the journalism of the past is that scientific knowledge circulates far faster and is much easier to access: “This is especially true of environmental journalism,” Ruiz Parra reflects. “In Murcia we are lucky enough to have some of Spain’s leading research centers, and I am fortunate in being able to call on them for information. They trust me to disseminate the results of their research and I manage to make news out of their advances. It is vital in my line of work to have access to scientific production, which in Murcia is very much centered on the environmental crises affecting us all.”
Environmental journalism, he believes, is increasingly about the call to action. “It is now beyond doubt that the climate crisis is the gravest threat facing humanity, and the job of environmental journalists is to convince society of the need to act. Of course we have to steer clear of catastrophism, but we must also be aware that we are providing a real-time chronicle of how that crisis is unfolding.”
Ruiz Parra has worked in almost every environmental reporting format. In 2011 he created the environmental channel “Los pies en la tierra,” a section of his paper’s website combining analysis and opinion pieces; over the last year he has produced “Campo a través,” a weekly newsletter on the environment for subscribers to laverdad.es; for five years he has directed and presented a program on environmental matters for regional TV channel Canal 6; he has contributed as an expert on environmental issues to various local radio programs, as well as national stations like the now defunct Punto Radio and public broadcaster Radio 5; and since 2018 he has written regularly in specialist magazine Ballena Blanca.
The need to deliver content in multiple formats is another of the challenges facing journalism today. “We are on all the social networks so not a single reader misses out on our reports. When looking for a way to tell a story, what never fails is a good photograph and an engaging approach, accompanied by a good headline,” he observes. As to the intense competition brought by the speed with which news circulates on the Internet, he describes it as “another concern” media outlets must face. “Fortunately, at La Verdad we have a web team in our newsroom focused precisely on these new languages. With their input, we are working on a new format called “Visual Stories,” combining photography, video and infographics. And we try to ensure that, once a week, they deal with environmental issues. It is true that the immediacy of the Internet exerts some pressure, but we have realized of late that it is more important to tell the story well than to tell it first. I’d rather spend an hour making an in-depth study of the latest Ministry report on the Mar Menor so I can find where the news is and decide on the really important content I want to highlight for our readers. We’ve learned that we have to ‘waste’ time that way if we want to provide quality news that captures their attention.”
As well as his environmental reporting role, in his time with La Verdad, Miguel Ángel Parra has headed the Culture, Society and Local sections and is currently in charge of the paper’s Weekend newsroom.