From Bhopal to Superfund: The News Media and the Environment

Abstract

Sanjoy Hazarika was among the first reporters to reach Bhopal within hours after tragedy first struck, and he has pursued the story that has grown out of it with the persistence that distinguishes all great reporters. As New Delhi correspondent for the New York Times, he helped shape his own paper's early coverage, and watched proudly as the paper continued its reporting - along with a handful of others - well after the defining moment of disaster had passed. As a Fellow of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Hazarlka stepped back to examine the effects of press coverage of the Bhopal disaster not only on public awareness of technology's dangers, but of its aftermath when a similar disaster nearly occurred here in the United States. Combining extensive interviewing with careful reconstruction of chronologies, he reveals how the Bhopal disaster ultimately led to important new public checks on a misplaced technological freedom. In doing so, he casts important new light on the intersection between technology, the public interest, and the role of reporting.