Eliminate the positive, accentuate the negative

A decade ago I scoffed and sneered with the best of them when BBC newscaster Martyn Lewis said there was too much stress on bad news in the media. But experience and, no doubt, accelerating middle age are increasingly persuading me he had a point. And for the media, include in the Daily Telegraph.

This week there was some positive news, be it ever so humble, for the tropical rainforests. A UK government-backed initiative, the Forest Footprint Disclosure project (FFD), published its first report highlighting those businesses which are going the extra mile to ensure their product and materials sourcing doesn’t contribute to deforestation.

The focus was specifically on “forest risk commodities”, materials most associated with damaging forest cover: timber, soy, beef, leather, biofuels and palm oil

The FFD’s conclusions were based on responses to a questionnaire sent to companies worldwide, quizzing them on a range of topics, such as whether their raw materials and products were environmentally certified and they could trace them back down the supply chain.

The idea is to flag up best practice, underline that being an environmental good-egg and commercially successful are not mutually exclusive and encourage the others - and top performers included forest and timber construction products giant Weyerhaeuser and timber and builders merchant Travis Perkins, plus the likes of Marks & Spencer and J Sainsbury.

However, when I spoke to one of the Daily Telegraph’s environment correspondents about this initiative, the response was pretty much that it was all very nice, but she wasn’t interested in “pats on the back” for companies doing the right thing, just exposing the eco-villains who are laying waste to the rainforest and sending us all to a polar bear-less hell in an over-heated hand cart.

Is it me, or isn’t it time for the national media generally to lighten up and give some eco-credit where eco-credit’s due? Small wonder, under the constant barrage of gloom and doom on so many topics dished out by the UK press and TV that The Times’ Populus poll recently found that 42% of Britons wanted to emigrate – depressing news in itself.