Motives and duties in communicating freight spill health risks

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis: Reporters and officials minimize or amplify the health hazards of freight spills, depending on accident severity and organizational routines. However, when journalists fail to cover major spills, other organizations decide whether, when, and how information about the accident is communicated to the public. In light of Kohlberg’s moral development theory, motives that reflect pre-conventional approaches to accident transparency include avoiding punishment, including regulatory fines or lawsuits, avoiding reputational harm, and self-interest such as secrecy and protecting profits/shareholders. Duties that reflect higher-level motivations include veracity (transparency), nonmaleficence (protect everyone from harm), fidelity (promote positive outcomes), accountability, autonomy (journalistic independence), and social contracts and rights, including public right to know. Three hypotheses guided the analysis: H1) Reporters with experience covering major freight spills will convey higher-level journalistic duties than inexperienced reporters; H2) Reporters will favor preparedness, mitigation, and response strategies that reflect higher-level motivations than officials will; and H3) Officials’ responses will reflect lower-level motivations about communicating health hazards than reporter responses.

Methods: National online surveys of 41 environmental journalists and 39 state transportation officials explored experiences and lessons learned among those who had responded to major freight spills. The surveys highlighted different motivations behind their responses to truck and train spills. Responses were keyed to Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. For example, stage 6 (distributive justice) duties involved sharing community resources, such as complete information, accident mitigation and remedies, preventive measures, inclusive disaster planning, protecting individuals and the environment from harm, and restoring the purity of soil, water, and air.

Results: All three hypotheses were supported. Transportation officials with freight spill experience were more likely than others to convey pre-conventional motivations including avoiding transparency and accountability. Experienced reporters tended to uphold post-conventional principles in their journalistic decisions. Depending on experience and roles, both reporters and officials emphasized different duties including accountability, transparency, veracity, protection, and the public right to know. Reporters who had covered catastrophic freight spills in the past were more likely than less-experienced reporters to feel that freight accident coverage should reflect higher-level duties. Experienced reporters also felt that freight spills do not receive adequate attention in the media.

Conclusions: Experienced officials were more likely than other officials and reporters to avoid transparency and accountability in order to avoid bad press. Experienced environmental reporters were more likely than other reporters to support holding agencies and corporations accountable, distributive justice of needed resources to low-income victims, and upholding transparency in providing complete details and explanations about impacts, spill patterns, health risks, preparedness, preventable causes, and long-term damage.

Implications for research and/or practice: Many journalists covering hazardous spills must remain silent for months and often can follow up only when FOIA requests produce records or when an official labels a spill as non-toxic or fully mitigated. In light of the extreme, chronic dearth of news coverage about catastrophic freight spills, this study proposes an ethical decision framework that could improve reporting about the health hazards, preparedness, long-term risks, and mitigation of future freight spills.