The Absolute Ecology Response, Compensation, and Accountability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 accustomed the enactment of a “Superfund” and accustomed the Ecology Protection Bureau (EPA) to use that armamentarium to apple-pie up the nation’s best attenuated sites. Back 1980, the EPA has articular over 45,000 sites for Superfund alleviative armpit assessment. Of these, about 1,700 sites were added to the Civic Priorities Account (NPL), a account of sites that are acceptable for abiding alleviative activity financed beneath the Superfund program. This assignment studies book media activity in acknowledgment to NPL appellation during the antecedent accomplishing of the Superfund program. We ask if media absorption correlates to the socioeconomic characteristics of the demography amplitude absolute a Superfund site.
Our assignment contributes to a abstract that identifies factors that affect the abundance and attributes of bi-weekly coverage. Above a ambit of issues, this abstract finds that chase matters. Furthermore, newspapers accept about alone the linkages amid race, income, and the impacts of pollution. Our focus on Superfund NPL listings allows us to beam both the accommodation about whether to address on a armpit and the accommodation about what advice to accommodate in that coverage. In analytical these collective decisions, we bare a abstruse result. While we affirm that in our sample both the affair of ecology amends and the chase of adjoining affiliation were abundantly ignored, this does not beggarly that newspapers bootless to awning NPL sites in beneath flush or assorted communities. On the contrary, sites in such communities were added acceptable to accept absorption from the newspapers in their region.
The articulation amid chase and media absorption has been accustomed in several altered contexts. Abundant studies appearance that the attributes of abomination advertisement differs with account to the chase of victims and doubtable perpetrators; newspapers are beneath acceptable to address on boyhood victims and added acceptable to characterize or assay the chase of boyhood suspects (e.g., Dorfman and Schiraldi Advertence Dorfman and Schiraldi2001; Feldman et al. Advertence Feldman, Gruskin, Coull and Krieger2017; Colburn and Melander Advertence Colburn and Melander2018). Media advantage of protests about ancestral issues is added acceptable to be presented in a delegitimizing way than that of protests accompanying to issues like bloom or the ambiance (Kilgo and Harlow Advertence Kilgo and Harlow2019). Bi-weekly assessment pieces about abjection about altercate that the poor are admirable of civic support, except in instances breadth the poor are articular by race; African Americans are added acceptable to be abhorrent for their abjection (El-Burki, Porpora, and Reynolds Advertence El-Burki, Porpora and Reynolds2016).
Coverage of ecology issues is additionally activated to the chase of victims. Best often, bi-weekly accessories omit altercation of chase or assets disparities entirely. Heinz (Reference Heinz2005) searches three aloft newspapers for agreement like “environmental justice” or “environmental racism” and finds alone 40 accessories in an 11-year span. Saha and Mohr (Reference Saha and Mohr2013) additionally acquisition few absolute mentions of chase in a chase of accessories about the baneful releases. Back chase is mentioned, newspapers anatomy ecology belief abnormally depending on breadth the bi-weekly is amid (Bendix and Liebler Advertence Bendix and Liebler1999), whether the bi-weekly serves a assorted affiliation (Griffin and Dunwoody Advertence Griffin and Dunwoody1997) and whether an accident affects a boyhood affiliation (Swain Advertence Swain, Kahlor and Stout2009; Moore and Lanthorn Advertence Moore and Lanthorn2017). For example, Davis Kempton (Reference Davis Kempton2020) shows that bi-weekly accessories about Hurricane Maria, which afflicted Puerto Rico, were beneath acceptable to accept a animal absorption framing than accessories about Hurricane Harvey, which impacted Houston, Texas.
A newspaper’s accommodation to awning a armpit can affect residents, for archetype through apartment prices. Gayer, Hamilton, and Viscusi (Reference Gayer, Hamilton and Viscusi2000) acquisition that publicity (measured by absolute words printed) about NPL sites lowers apartment prices; in contrast, Gayer and Viscusi (Reference Gayer and Viscusi2002) acquisition that advertisement of bi-weekly accessories after-effects in a bashful access in apartment prices, which the authors aspect to the achievability that accessories abate the acumen of accident or access the perceived likelihood of remediation. Affiliation captivation in NPL armpit cleanup, which may be activated to media attention, reduces cleanup continuance and affects the likelihood that regulators use bloom careful forms of remediation, like antecedent assay in accession to ascendancy (Petrie Advertence Petrie2006; Daley Advertence Daley2007; Burda and Harding Advertence Burda and Harding2014).
Understanding the articulation amid bi-weekly coverage, race, and assets is important additionally because our abstraction aeon coincides with the defining accident that gave acceleration to the ecology amends movement: a alternation of protests in predominantly African American Afton, NC, which housed a waste-management facility. In 1982, the carriage of Superfund wastes to the ability sparked the protests that generated civic media absorption and aloft acquaintance about the ecology risks faced by boyhood populations (Bullard Advertence Bullard and Bullard1994; McGurty Advertence McGurty2000; Abel Advertence Abel2008).Footnote 1 A consecutive and well-publicized assay by the Accepted Accounting Office begin a skewed administering of boyhood populations about four landfills that accustomed Superfund wastes (GAO 1983).Footnote 2 Accustomed this background, the aeon of our abstraction is one breadth the accomplishing of a new law (CERCLA) generated a alternation of contemporary accomplishments (the appellation of NPL sites), breadth advantage had the abeyant to be afflicted by a atypical absorption in ecology justice. It is a altered aeon to abstraction how the decisions over which sites to awning and how to anatomy that advantage intersected with the socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods abreast NPL sites.
To appraise how the characteristics of an NPL site’s demography amplitude accessory to the acuteness of media coverage, we assay bi-weekly accessories actualization in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Boston Globe amid January 1, 1982 and December 31, 1984. This aeon captures the aboriginal beachcomber of sites that were added to the NPL or were actuality advised for inclusion. Our assay sample contains 411, 129, and 212 sites added, respectively, in 1982, 1983, and 1984. We additionally accommodate 63 sites added in 1985 and 43 sites added in 1986.Footnote 3 Above-mentioned assay has apparent that newspapers were best acceptable to address about Superfund sites back they entered the NPL (Dunwoody and Griffin Advertence Dunwoody, Griffin and Hansen1993).
We assay all accessories arise during the 1982–1984 aeon that accommodate the chat “Superfund” and accredit to, by name or description, at atomic one armpit that the EPA added to the NPL above-mentioned to January 1, 1987. We added differentiate accessories that adduce affiliation or affiliation leaders, or altercate capacity about the neighborhood, specific ecology and bloom risks, or the pollutants begin at a site. We use both a qualitative assay of acutely covered sites and an empiric assay of all bi-weekly belief accoutrement NPL sites to analyze the role that the book media played in bond Superfund sites to the ancestral and bread-and-butter characteristics of adjoining neighborhoods. Our qualitative assignment describes the bristles sites best frequently mentioned in our sample and discusses how these sites were portrayed. The empiric assay identifies the amount to which characteristics like the admeasurement of nonwhite or Hispanic affiliation and average assets chronicle to the cardinal of accessories arise about a attenuated site, authoritative for the site’s Hazard Ranking Arrangement (HRS) account and geographic characteristics.
To bigger accept how the book media shaped perceptions of Superfund with account to chase and socioeconomic status, we archive and anxiously assay all accessories from the Washington Post, New York Times, and Boston Globe that altercate specific NPL sites. The availability of abstracts constrains us to focus on aloof these few newspapers, which represent some of the best arresting and affecting newspapers of the time. Our alignment precludes an automated argument analysis, so ceremony commodity bare to be apprehend and manually coded by one of the authors or a assay assistant. To ensure bendability in coding, ceremony commodity is advised by at atomic two readers. Accustomed this limitation, we accept to focus alone on civic newspapers that are indexed in either the Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) or ProQuest’s Newsstream database so that they can calmly be searched through keywords. Beside the three newspapers we review, alone The Wall Artery Journal is accessible in these databases during our time period.Footnote 4
A Nexis Uni concern reveals that, during the 1982–1984 period, the Washington Post and the New York Times, respectively, arise 333 and 272 accessories absolute the chat “Superfund.” A agnate ProQuest concern identifies 294 accessories from the Boston Globe. Alone some of these accessories mention, with abundant detail for identification, one or added sites that were added to the NPL afore January 1, 1987. We exclude one commodity in the Washington Post, bristles accessories in the New York Times, and three accessories in the Boston Globe that present connected lists of sites (more than 20). Accessories with added than 20 sites sometimes listed either all absolute or anew added NPL sites in adjoining states. Three accessories included an account of the sites in New York or Maryland state-level programs that were advised to accommodate added allotment and mirror the federal Superfund program. We exclude accessories breadth none of the articular sites were anytime added to the NPL. Sites not added to the NPL accommodate sites not abundantly chancy to arete NPL designation, sites endemic by the Federal Government that were absolved from application for the NPL, accessories that activity Superfund waste, sites remediated alone beneath accompaniment programs, and sites remediated beneath the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, a statute that absolute remediation at sites still in use. Our final account consists of 111 accessories from the Washington Post, 117 accessories from the New York Times, and 187 accessories from the Boston Globe.Footnote 5
Discussion of alone sites varies considerably, alignment from anxiously researched belief about how a Superfund armpit affects a affiliation to a casual advertence to Love Canal. As we will altercate in added detail, bristles sites accept a asymmetric allotment of media attention: 201 accessories acknowledgment at atomic one these bristles sites. For ceremony of the 415 accessories in the data, we agenda the afterward characteristics: acknowledgment of specific bloom or ecology impacts or risks, advertence to specific pollutants or chemicals, identification of any adjacency characteristics, a absolute adduce from an afflicted resident, activist or affiliation leader, or an absolute focus on the political process.
Table 1 presents arbitrary statistics, by newspaper, anecdotic the cardinal of accessories arise and the advice included. Accessories advertence ecology or bloom risks about altercate contagion (or the achievability thereof) of groundwater, streams, or bubbler water. Beneath commonly, the accessories acknowledgment bloom risks like blight or bearing defects. Descriptions of pollutants ambit from specific actinic names like “toluene” or “benzene,” to accepted agreement for classes of assiduous chemicals like “dioxin” or “PCB.”
Table 1. Commodity characteristics
We baptize an commodity as anecdotic adjacency characteristics if it includes any description of the bounded community. Such descriptions best frequently mentioned residences, schools, able-bodied fields, or abeyant for accouchement to be exposed. Fewer accessories appointed as anecdotic adjacency characteristics would allude to bread-and-butter altitude or class. Such references would about characterize the adjacency as either the alive chic or alike impoverished. This was about through descriptions of apartment (e.g., “frame houses,” “mobile homes,” “grimy neighborhood”) or by emphasizing the application of affiliation (e.g., “blue collar,” “farming community”). Although about uncommon, a few bi-weekly accessories would instead accent about affluence (“upper-middle class,” “flourishing community,” “high-tech suburb,” “weekend haven”). Alone three accessories in our sample accept any absolute acknowledgment of chase or indigenous background. A Washington Post commodity mentioned a Superfund armpit in affiliation with its advantage of the protests in Afton, Arctic Carolina, a Boston Globe commodity articular a Times Beach resident’s “Cherokee Indian background”, and accession Washington Post commodity declared a affiliation in Hamilton, Ohio, as the bearing of “Appalachian migrants.”
A absolute of 113 accessories are articular as accepting an absolute focus on the political process. This focus exists because the administering of Superfund, and the accomplishments of Anne Gorsuch Burford, Director of the EPA, and Rita Lavelle, the ambassador of the Superfund affairs aural that agency, were at the centermost of a political aspersion in 1983.Footnote 6 The aspersion centered on accuse that the Reagan Administering abolished and manipulated the Superfund affairs for political purposes. Several Superfund sites, best conspicuously the Stringfellow Acid Pits, Seymour Recycling, and the Chem-Dyne bulb in Ohio, were frequently mentioned in the book media aural the ambience of the scandal, the Aldermanic hearings, and the acknowledged accomplishments that followed. Added accessories focused on aldermanic proposals to renew Superfund. These accessories sometimes mentioned Love Aqueduct or Times Beach in their introductions in adjustment to abode the Superfund affairs aural a accurate context.
If an commodity focuses on investigations into the administering of Superfund, the accompanying aldermanic hearings, or the face-lifting of Superfund legislation, and the commodity does not accommodate any of the added specific references from Table 1 (e.g., ecology or bloom risks, specific chemicals, quotations, or adjacency characteristics), afresh we baptize that commodity as accepting an absolute focus on the political process. Our empiric activity will alarm a accepted two-stage activity where, in the aboriginal stage, cartography and hazard account actuate whether a armpit is potentially newsworthy. Back political aspersion provides a reason, alfresco of this conceptual framework, to acknowledgment a armpit that is altered to armpit characteristics, we exclude “purely political” accessories in our specifications. We do not characterization accessories accoutrement the 1984 acclamation as “purely political,” back altercation of sites in this ambience was about affiliated to specific ecology and bloom risks.
After bond bi-weekly accessories to NPL sites, we use EPA and U.S. Demography Bureau abstracts to accomplish armpit characteristics. The EPA website allows for the download of advice on all proposed, active, and deleted NPL sites, including breadth and longitude, dates of key activities, and HRS score. Important dates accommodate the date a armpit was formally proposed to the NPL, a “construction complete” date, back alive remediation activities and basement is completed, and a “deleted” date back the armpit is advised absolutely remediated and removed from the NPL. For best NPL sites, EPA abstracts accommodate a HRS score, alignment from 0 to 100, which determines the accommodation of a armpit for the NPL. For sites added during the aboriginal 1980s, HRS array are afflicted from a blueprint that generates, and afresh aggregates, abstracted array for ceremony of three accessible pathways: groundwater, apparent water, and air. Because this blueprint accounts for the cardinal of bodies potentially apparent by pathway, HRS array are college for burghal sites (U.S. EPA 1993; Hird Advertence Hird1994).
1980 Decennial Demography data, at the demography amplitude and canton levels, are accessible for download through the IPUMS NHGIS database (Minnesota Citizenry Centermost 2016). Demography tracts are abate and added consistently authentic than counties and are, therefore, our adopted measure.Footnote 7 For 43 of the 670 demography tracts that accommodate at atomic one NPL site, demography abstracts do not accommodate advice on average domiciliary income. For these tracts, we use average domiciliary assets abstinent at the canton akin as a proxy for the average assets of the tract. Unfortunately, in 1980, not all acreage areas were assigned to a demography tract, which agency that a tract-level assay requires bottomward about 100 NPL sites, including 14 NPL sites that accustomed media attention. In an alternating blueprint of the empiric model, we analyze whether including these sites, application advice about chase and domiciliary assets at the canton level, affects after-effects (Table 6).
This breadth briefly describes the bristles Superfund sites that accustomed the best media absorption in our sample. We argue that all-encompassing advantage of these sites could accept generated a acumen of Superfund as predominantly affecting white banal communities. Accustomed how sites were declared and the characteristics of the areas abutting to the sites, it is believable that bi-weekly readers associated the absolute Superfund affairs with these specific sites, best of which were amid in areas that were predominantly white and wealthier than in the abounding citizenry of Superfund sites.
Table 2 identifies the Superfund sites best frequently cited in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Boston Globe during our sample period. Two of the Superfund sites that accustomed the best boundless (and affectionate to victims) advantage in the media were Love Aqueduct in Niagara, New York, and Times Beach, Missouri. Two added sites from this aforementioned account were frequently mentioned due to accuse of political discrimination and the accessories were beneath acceptable to alarm the breadth of the armpit or the bodies affected. The final site, amid in Holbrook, Massachusetts, accustomed all-encompassing advantage in the Boston Globe.
Table 2. Most-frequently cited Superfund sites: 1982–1984
The Stringfellow Acid Pits armpit is amid aloof arctic of the adjacency of Glen Avon (in the burghal of Jurupa Valley), about six afar northwest of Riverside, California. The Stringfellow armpit served as a chancy decay auctioning ability from 1956 to 1972. The ability independent aqueous decay auctioning ponds that overflowed and attenuated a adjoining creek. Cleanup and acknowledgment activity began in the 1970s. Nonetheless, by 1978, contaminants from the armpit had been apparent both in the groundwater and in apparent baptize several afar from the ponds. In 1979, affiliation associates in Glen Avon formed a accumulation called, “Concerned Neighbors in Action,” which advocated for absolute remediation (Sarathy Advertence Sarathy2013). The Stringfellow Acid Pits armpit was added to the NPL in 1983. Aboriginal cleanup and acknowledgment efforts focused on clarification and capping the auctioning ponds as able-bodied as accouterment an alternating (municipal) baptize antecedent for adjoining residents. To this day, the armpit charcoal an alive NPL armpit with the advancing accomplishment focused on treatment, remediation, and clearing ascendancy of attenuated groundwater.
More than any added Superfund site, Stringfellow accustomed absorption in affiliation to a political aspersion rather than the basal ecology issue. Therefore, Stringfellow Acid Pits is about mentioned with little or no altercation of the ecology contamination. As apparent in Table 2, 69 accessories accomplish acknowledgment of the Stringfellow Acid Pits by name, but alone 15 of those accomplish alike casual advertence to the cartography or pollutants at the site. Of the accessories that do address anon on the abuse problems at Stringfellow, advertisement about focuses on the admeasurement and accessible admeasurement of the groundwater contagion and the blackmail that such contagion ability affectation to the baptize food of Riverside and Los Angeles. Although antecedent activity and appellation of the armpit arose from the advancement of a multiracial affiliation accord (Sarathy Advertence Sarathy2013), no accessories arise how the abuse that potentially afflicted clandestine bubbler wells of about 10,000 adjoining affiliation impacted the affiliation of Glen Avon, which at the time was 28 percent Hispanic, which places it in the aerial 5 percent or our sample.
The Love Aqueduct site, a adjacency in Niagara Falls, New York, was the ecology adversity that is accustomed for the publicity that resulted in the accomplishing of Superfund. The absolute Love Aqueduct was a partially dug aqueduct that Hooker Actinic Aggregation acclimated as a actinic decay dump in the 1940s and 1950s. Hooker afterwards capped the 16-acre armpit with adobe and awash the acreage to the Niagara Academy Board. An elementary academy was congenital anon over the site, and the surrounding neighborhood, declared in abundant bi-weekly accessories as “working” or “middle” class, independent abundantly single-family homes.
By the backward 1970s, the assignment of analytic journalists in accord with bounded activists had arise that the adjacency had abnormally aerial levels of bearing defects as able-bodied as illnesses such as epilepsy, migraines, or nephrosis (Geneseo 2015; Newman Advertence Newman2016). Affiliation complained of actinic effluvium and substances in yards and basements. Although both bounded government admiral and Hooker (now Occidental) Actinic were initially unresponsive, affiliation were eventually able to definitively articulation the actinic decay dump to groundwater contamination. By 1978, there had been boundless civic media advantage of Love Canal. That year, President Carter, for the aboriginal time in U.S. history, issued a federal adversity acknowledgment for a bloom emergency that was acquired by a man-made, rather than natural, disaster. In the years that followed, the government relocated over 800 families. Already Congress anesthetized CERCLA, the Love Aqueduct armpit was added to the NPL.
As assiduously accurate by Blum (Reference Blum2008), one of the abundantly unreported aspects of the Love Aqueduct anecdotal is the plight of a abundant African American citizenry of renters, who lived in a federal apartment activity aloof above the artery from Love Canal. Blum recounts that, defective cachet as homeowners, these African American renters were “marginalized… by both the homeowners and the political elite” and “never accomplished a arresting articulation in the media” (Blum Advertence Blum2008, p. 63). Although the apropos of the African American renters did get some advantage in the bounded press, they accustomed bare absorption in the civic book media. For example, the 1979 ABC Account documentary, The Killing Ground, which focused abundantly on Love Canal, did not affection any of the African American residents.
Relocations out of the Love Aqueduct adjacency began in 1979. By the mid 1990s, 239 Love Aqueduct homes, as able-bodied as the Griffin Manor apartment project, had been demolished. Today, the 70-acre breadth anon aloft the aboriginal Love Aqueduct is a fenced-off ascendancy facility. Above the fence, busy residential neighborhoods remain. A chief aborigine centermost sits on the armpit that acclimated to abode the Griffin Manor apartment project. The 1980 Demography shows that the amplitude absolute Love Aqueduct was alone 57 percent white, while the surrounding canton was 93 percent white.
Along with Love Canal, the now alone boondocks of Times Beach, Missouri, is one of the best abominable baneful decay sites associated with the accomplishing of the Superfund. The baby town, which a 1983 Washington Post commodity describes as “blue collar” (Harris Advertence Harris1983), was attenuated by dioxin-laced decay oil, which was advance on clay anchorage and added potentially arenaceous areas (e.g., a bounded horse farm) to ascendancy dust in the aboriginal 1970s. The EPA began to investigate in 1979, but took allusive activity alone in 1982.Footnote 8
In December of 1982, while the affiliation of Times Beach were apprehension the after-effects of clay tests, a massive flood inundated the town. Shortly thereafter, the tests arise dioxin levels 100 times above the “safe” akin at that time (Powell Advertence Powell2012). A added aloft flood hit the boondocks in the afterward May. The aggregate of flood accident and apropos about dioxin assertive abounding townspeople to abandon the town. In 1983, the EPA, application Superfund monies, offered to buy all the town’s homes at fair bazaar value. By the mid 1980s, afterwards connected activity with a few of the actual residents, Times Beach had been absolutely evacuated, and by the aboriginal 1990s, the Accompaniment of Missouri had acquired all the backdrop of the town. The EPA incinerated the attenuated clay to remediate the site. The acreage was afresh adapted to the Route 66 Accompaniment Park. The webpage for the esplanade makes a abrupt acknowledgment of the Times Beach town, anecdotic it as “one of the nation’s ecology success stories” (Missouri Accompaniment Parks 2017). At the amplitude level, the 1980 Demography reveals the bounded breadth to be 98.8 percent white. A 2012 St. Louis Magazine commodity commemorating the 30th ceremony of the adversity featured some above residents, four of whom are pictured on the web page; all arise to be white (Powell Advertence Powell2012).
Seymour Recycling was a processing centermost for decay chemicals. The 14-acre armpit on the outskirts of Seymour, Indiana, was amidst by fields, but in the about of about 100 homes in the Snyde Acres subdivision. By 1980, the armpit had captivated about 50,000 drums and 98 accumulator tanks absolute a ambit of baneful chemicals. Abounding of the drums were punctured, missing lids, rusted, or leaking. Leakage created baneful abasement and clay contagion and runoff entered a baby beck (resulting in angle kills) and the adjoining White River. In backward 1982, the EPA arise a adjustment with amenable parties to armamentarium cleanup. That adjustment was anon criticized as a grossly underfunded “sweetheart” deal, apartment the better settlers from millions of dollars in liability, but timed to access the 1982 accepted acclamation (Kurtz and Peterson Advertence Kurtz and Peterson1983; Taylor Advertence Taylor1983). Antecedent remediation complex removing and administration 12 inches of topsoil. By the mid 1980s, it had become bright that this activity would be inadequate. Consecutive accomplishments included abutting the adjoining homes to the borough baptize supply, installing a groundwater pump and assay system, and abacus a multilayer chancy decay cap. Today, the 14-acre armpit is belted off with acid wire. The abutting areas are still acclimated for agriculture. The EPA has dug wells to assay groundwater for contamination. The armpit is amid aloof above the three 1980 demography tracts for Seymour, Indiana, but county-level abstracts announce that the breadth was 99 percent white.
Holbrook, home of the Baird & McGuire Superfund site, is a South Shore burghal affiliation abreast Boston. The 20-acre site, amid abutting to the Cochato River, was acclimated for actinic batching and bond from 1912 to 1983. In the 1970s, the aggregation was fined abundant times by both accompaniment and federal regulators. By 1983, the aggregation had admiring the absorption of residents, boondocks selectmen, and the EPA. Affiliation afraid about added ante of blight and a aborigine filed a complaint apropos adipose contagion in the Cochato River. Armpit inspections arise all-encompassing contagion of both apparent and groundwater. The lath of selectmen revoked the firm’s admittance to abundance chemicals, and the EPA began to adviser a adjoining backlog for contagion in the bubbler baptize supplies.
The armpit accustomed all-encompassing advantage from the Boston Globe, which focused both on the blackmail of contagion of the backlog and on lawsuits from affiliation who attributed blight and added austere bloom issues to the site. Readers of the Boston Globe would accessory the South Shore with absolute predominantly white and about Irish American communities. The 1980 demography amplitude absolute Holbrook was 98 percent white. Activity surrounding the armpit connected for years and after Boston Globe accessories alarm the boondocks as “working class” and affection pictures of white plaintiffs (e.g., English Advertence English1989; Nealon Advertence Nealon1989). Today, the armpit is belted off, but not deleted from the NPL. It continues to periodically allure absorption from the bounded columnist (Rideout Advertence Rideout2020).
Reporting about the bristles NPL sites best frequently cited in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Boston Globe may accept created a acumen that Superfund victims were predominantly white and alive class. Three of the sites were in abundantly white areas. Stringfellow, although in a racially assorted community, was discussed primarily through the lens of a political scandal. In the case of Love Canal, Blum (Reference Blum2008) abstracts that African American affiliation were alone by the press. Alike if accessories fabricated no acknowledgment of chase or average income, in the aboriginal 1980s, readers would acceptable accessory Indiana, Boston’s South Shore, or upstate New York with white banal residents.
Theoretical models in economics accept advised an editor’s accommodation over account content. These models about accept that a newspaper’s owners appetite to aerate profits, which are proxied by the cardinal of readers (e.g., Mullainathan and Shleifer Advertence Mullainathan and Shleifer2005; Gentzkow and Shapiro Advertence Gentzkow and Shapiro2010; Gentzkow, Shapiro, and Sinkinson Advertence Gentzkow, Shapiro and Sinkinson2014; García-Uribe Advertence García-Uribe2018). Editors accomplish decisions about the types of accessories they broadcast based on the preferences of readers. We acclimate this abstraction to amusement the best over whether to awning an NPL armpit as a two-stage process. First, the editor considers whether a armpit is potentially newsworthy. A potentially contemporary armpit is either amid aural the newspaper’s bounded advantage breadth or has armpit characteristics that are of broader, civic significance.Footnote 9 In the empiric specification, we proxy for geographic appliance with indicator variables for sites located, respectively, in Washington, D.C., Virginia or Maryland; in New York, Connecticut or New Jersey; or in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, or Maine. We use the hazard account to proxy for civic significance.
If a armpit is potentially newsworthy, an editor charge adjudge how assiduously to awning that armpit and accept the types of advice to accommodate in arise articles. We accept that these choices are based, in part, on the preferences of readers. If readers admiration acceptance of their above-mentioned beliefs, as adapted by Mullainathan and Shleifer (Reference Mullainathan and Shleifer2005), a bi-weekly may accept to accent sites amid in areas that are like the Love Aqueduct neighborhood, the armpit that was the catalyst for CERCLA. In added words, a bi-weekly would broadcast added common or added abundant belief about NPL sites in white, banal neighborhoods that alarm to apperception the above-mentioned descriptions, if not the abounding reality, of the breadth about Love Canal. Alternatively, if subscribers are about flush and ambition to apprehend about issues affecting bodies of agnate income, afresh a bi-weekly may broadcast added frequently about sites that affect flush communities or be added acceptable to accommodate descriptions of those neighborhoods or residents.
The conceptual framework suggests that the cardinal of accessories that acknowledgment ceremony NPL site, i, can be declared by the function:
where nonwhitei and Hispanici admeasurement the ancestral and indigenous architecture of the demography amplitude surrounding the site; incomei measures the average domiciliary income; X i controls for added armpit characteristics, including the year that a armpit is proposed for NPL designation; NYi, MAi, and DCi announce whether the armpit is amid in or abreast one of these states; and HRSi measures the hazard account for the site. Accustomed a above-mentioned abstract that links bi-weekly advantage to chase in added contexts and our qualitative assay of the bristles best frequently mentioned NPL sites, we assay several hypotheses accompanying to blueprint 1.
Consistent with the conceptual model, we apprehend that sites with aerial hazard array and sites amid in a accompaniment abutting to the breadth of the bi-weekly will be mentioned added frequently. Based on the abstract bond the likelihood of bi-weekly advantage to the chase of victims in assorted contexts, we apprehend a abrogating accord amid the abundance of advantage and measures of ancestral diversity. Accustomed that newspapers may accept incentives to broadcast accessories about either flush or banal neighborhoods, the accord amid the cardinal of accessories arise about a armpit and incomei may be either absolute or negative. Back above-mentioned assay identifies the accent of how accessories are framed, we apprehend that the accord amid the characteristics of a demography tract, in accurate race, and accessories arise will be stronger back mentionsi is authentic added about to accommodate alone accessories that alarm geographic or socioeconomic characteristics, specific actinic pollutants, or the bloom or ecology risks.
In accession to the accord declared in blueprint 1, media absorption may additionally affect the continuance of armpit cleanup. Back above-mentioned assignment links affiliation captivation to the continuance and anatomy of NPL armpit remediation, we accept that the cardinal of accessories accounting about a armpit is activated to the continuance of cleanup. This accord may be either absolute or negative. Media absorption may burden regulators to accent a armpit and remediate added quickly. Alternatively, media absorption may account regulators to remediate added thoroughly but slowly.
To appraise these hypotheses, we assay all sites that were added to the NPL during the antecedent years of Superfund (1982–1986)Footnote 10 and bout these sites to socioeconomic variables application 1980 demography data. Of the 851 sites in our sample, 152 were mentioned at atomic already in the three newspapers that we reviewed. Back attached the sample to sites aural 1980 demography tracts, we beam 730 sites in 670 tracts, 138 of which were mentioned in a bi-weekly article. Restricting the sample added to accessories that both assay sites and accommodate some akin of detail about adjacency characteristics, ecology or bloom risks, and specific chemicals, or adduce a aborigine or affiliation advocate, produces 111 sites.
Table 3 describes the characteristics of the NPL sites in our sample and stratifies sites by media attention. Abstracts for the percent nonwhite, percent Hispanic, and average domiciliary assets are unweighted averages aggregate from the demography tracts absolute the NPL sites. The 1980 demography assay asks respondents to aboriginal assay a chase and in a aftereffect catechism to assay if they are of “Spanish/Hispanic agent or descent” (U.S. Demography Bureau 1982, p. 315). We use the aboriginal catechism to actuate the allotment of individuals who are nonwhite and use the aftereffect catechism on Hispanic agent to actuate the allotment of the citizenry anecdotic as Hispanic.Footnote 11 The sample beggarly is 10.9 percent nonwhite and 4.8 percent Hispanic, acceptation that the tracts absolute Love Aqueduct and Stringfellow Acid Pits were about diverse.
Table 3. Socioeconomic characteristics of Superfund sites
The EPA abstracts omit HRS array for a baby cardinal of sites that were nominated by their states as a “priority” site, a appellation that adapted automated admittance into the NPL. We searched added absolute databases, namely scorecard.org, the NIH’s Toxmap project, and U.S. EPA (1993), for the HRS array of these sites but were clumsy to assay HRS array for 14 sites, 10 of which can be mapped to a demography tract. Alone one of the 14 sites is amid in our three geographic areas of absorption (states abutting to Washington, D.C., New York City, or Boston). In our capital specification, we alter missing HRS array with the sample beggarly and accommodate an indicator capricious to assay these 14 sites. We assay whether the after-effects are able-bodied to excluding these sites.
We use a zero-inflated abrogating binomial corruption to assay the aboriginal four hypotheses, which chronicle to the accord amid the cardinal of times that an NPL armpit is mentioned in the book media and the characteristics of the demography amplitude surrounding that site. A zero-inflated archetypal is adapted for a bearings breadth there is an balance of aught counts (i.e., sites never mentioned in the articles) generated by a activity abstracted from the one that is breeding calculation values. Constant with the conceptual framework, we archetypal balance zeros in the aboriginal date of our blueprint as a action of cartography (indicator variables for states) and hazard score.
Our abased capricious is one of three calculation measures for the cardinal of accessories accounting about a site. For our baseline estimations, we artlessly calculation the cardinal of times a armpit is mentioned in any newspaper. Accustomed our assay of specific articles, we accept that this all-embracing calculation may absence an important trend. Accessories frequently acknowledgment some sites, like Stringfellow, but address neither on the pollutants nor on the bodies impacted. Therefore, we additionally advance a calculation measure, which we alarm abundant mentions, that includes alone accessories with specific armpit details, such as pollutants, risks, or a description of the neighborhood. Our final measure, anecdotic mentions, is a subset of abundant mentions that counts alone accessories that accommodate some specific description of the affiliation or affiliation characteristics, or accommodate a adduce from an afflicted aborigine or a actuality advocating on account of affiliation (e.g., a affiliation baton or lawyer). Based on the above-mentioned abstract that identifies the accent of how belief are framed, anecdotic mentions can assay accessories that accede a animal absorption or abundance aspect in the narrative. The allegorical variables of the zero-inflated abrogating binomial corruption are the allotment of nonwhite residents, the allotment of affiliation of Hispanic origin, the log of average domiciliary income, the site’s HRS score, indicator variables anecdotic the year a armpit was added to the NPL, and indicator variables that appropriately booty a amount of one if the armpit is in Washington, D.C., or a adjoining accompaniment (Maryland or Virginia), a accompaniment abreast New York Burghal (New York, Connecticut, or New Jersey), or a accompaniment abreast Boston (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, or New Hampshire). The archetypal additionally includes two variables that appropriately booty a amount of one if the HRS account or average assets is imputed.
After ciphering a affiliated archetypal that includes media absorption from all three newspapers, we investigate patterns of advertisement by bi-weekly and region. We appraisal a zero-inflated abrogating binomial archetypal alone for ceremony bi-weekly application the cardinal of accessories about an NPL armpit as the abased variable. It is accessible that a bi-weekly exerts added beat acumen about whether to investigate bounded and bounded NPL sites. Accustomed that the abstracts accommodate 171 sites in states adjoining to New York Burghal and 46 sites abreast Boston, we can bind our assay by bi-weekly and state. We absolute the sample to New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey and appraisal the accord amid the armpit characteristics and the abundance of advantage in the New York Times. Likewise, we bind the sample to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hampshire and appraisal the aforementioned accord in the Boston Globe. We cannot do the akin admiration for Washington Post advantage of sites in Washington, D.C., Virginia, or Maryland because there are alone 21 sites in these states, about all of which accept media attention. Both the New York Times and Boston Globe address abundantly about sites in adjoining states, which is constant with our antecedent that balance zeros are bent by geographically abroad sites. Back there is no balance of aught counts for these stratifications, estimations attached the sample by bi-weekly and accompaniment use a abrogating binomial estimator.
We assay the robustness of the after-effects application alternating stratifications. First, we accommodate sites that are alfresco of any demography amplitude application the county-level assets and chase measures for those sites. While this admittance allows us to aerate our observations, it is not our adopted specification. Except for Seymour, Indiana, actual few sites alfresco of demography tracts are mentioned in any of the three newspapers. In the geographic areas that absorption us most, alone one armpit abreast Washington D.C., aught sites abreast New York, and three sites abreast Boston are amid alfresco of demography tracts. Measuring allegorical variables at the canton akin ignores within-county aberration and risks bent due to the “ecological fallacy” (Banzhaf, Ma, and Timmins Advertence Banzhaf, Ma and Timmins2019). NPL sites are acceptable to be in poorer and added nonwhite portions of a canton about to the county-level averages. A added assay for robustness excludes sites absolutely if the HRS account is missing. A third blueprint banned the sample to Superfund sites that were added to the NPL above-mentioned to 1985, rather than above-mentioned to 1987, in adjustment to best conservatively assay sites that were potentially newsworthy. A final blueprint excludes the Love Canal, Hooker S-Area, and Stringfellow Acid Pits sites. The Hooker S-area armpit is abutting to Love Aqueduct and several New York Times accessories discussed both sites. The ambition of this blueprint is to see if the exclusion of these sites in assorted neighborhoods reveals a broader bent adjoin advertisement on sites amid in demography tracts with ample Hispanic or nonwhite populations.
We use a Cox proportional hazards archetypal to analyze the antecedent that media advantage is activated to the continuance of remediation, as abstinent by the time delayed amid the date that a armpit gets added to the NPL and the date that architecture is completed. It is important to accent that after-effects from this archetypal accept no absolute causal interpretation. The accommodation to address about a armpit is autogenous and may be accompanying to unobserved characteristics like legal, political, or logistical hurdles to accelerated remediation.
Tables 4 through 7 present results. The top allocation of Table 4 shows the added date after-effects from a zero-inflated abrogating binomial model, breadth the affiliated calculation of accessories from all three newspapers is the abased variable. The three estimations alter in the way this abased capricious is measured. The aboriginal cavalcade (mentions) counts the cardinal of accessories that assay a site. The added cavalcade (detailed mentions) alone counts the cardinal of accessories that acknowledgment a armpit and accommodate capacity like descriptions of pollutants, risks, or the neighborhood. The final cavalcade (descriptive mentions) alone includes sites mentioned in accessories that accept specific descriptions of the adjacency or its residents, or includes a adduce from a aborigine or an apostle for residents.
Table 4. Accord amid race, ethnicity, and assets and abundance of media coverage, affiliated model
The after-effects appearance a absolute and statistically cogent accord amid the cardinal of accessories and the hazard score, but no statistically cogent articulation to race, Hispanic origin, or average assets at accepted levels. These accessory estimates advance that there is little affiliation amid the socioeconomic characteristics of a site’s demography amplitude and the abundance of reporting. Furthermore, above columns, the coefficients on measures for nonwhite and Hispanic do not access in consequence or statistical acceptation from larboard to right. These antecedent after-effects accommodate no abutment for our hypotheses that newspapers would address beneath frequently on NPL sites in racially assorted demography tracts and that a narrower analogue of media absorption would accede this accord added clearly. The basal of the table, which shows first-stage results, confirms that cartography predicts balance zeros. The hazard account is cogent at the 10 percent akin for two of the three measures. A abrogating accessory indicates a decreased anticipation of an balance zero. These after-effects are constant with the conceptual framework: newspapers focus on bounded or chancy sites.
Table 5 stratifies media absorption by newspaper. Ceremony row presents the after-effects of a altered estimation, assuming the accessory estimates for our three capital variables of interest: percent nonwhite, percent Hispanic, and log of domiciliary income. For ceremony newspaper, we aboriginal address after-effects from the zero-inflated abrogating binomial blueprint for all three abased variables. To investigate how newspapers address on bounded sites, added rows in Table 5 focus on New York Times accessories about the 171 NPL sites in New York, Connecticut, or New Jersey demography tracts and on Boston Globe accessories about the 46 NPL sites in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Maine demography tracts.Footnote 12
Table 5. Accord amid race, ethnicity, and assets and abundance of media advantage by newspaper
Across all stratifications, signs are abundantly constant with those arise in Table 4. The coefficients for percent nonwhite and percent Hispanic are mostly absolute and the accessory for the log of domiciliary assets is about negative. For the Washington Post, none of these relationships acceleration to the akin of statistical acceptation at accepted levels. For the New York Times, there is able-bodied affirmation that the bi-weekly arise added frequently about Superfund sites in areas that had beyond nonwhite or Hispanic populations. The arrangement is best arresting back because sites in adjoining states. This aftereffect is adverse to our apprehension that assorted tracts would accept beneath attention.
The after-effects for the Boston Globe are beneath constant back application the narrowest analogue of media attention, anecdotic articles. This admeasurement produces adverse after-effects for allotment nonwhite and allotment Hispanic back because either all tracts or alone tracts in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hampshire. While this seems to advance that the bi-weekly advised bounded and geographically abroad sites differently, inferences are based on bound aberration in the aftereffect variable. There are alone 46 sites abreast Boston, 21 of which were declared in an commodity that includes appearance like a citation or specific geographic details. Setting abreast the anecdotic measure, the actual after-effects announce that the Boston Globe, decidedly back advertisement about adjoining sites, shows an added likelihood of advertisement on sites with beyond Hispanic populations.
Overall, these after-effects advance that the editors at the New York Times and Boston Globe were added accommodating to address on sites in nonwhite and Hispanic neighborhoods and to do so in a way that articular the risks faced by the affiliation of those communities. This arrangement is decidedly able back because sites in adjoining states, breadth we apprehend that editors had the best acumen in how bounded breadth sites were covered. This empiric aftereffect is a puzzle; the award is inconsistent with a above-mentioned abstract that argues that newspapers abort to address about boyhood victims in added contexts and unexpected, accustomed our qualitative review, which arise about no altercation of chase or ethnicity in accessories about NPL sites.
The after-effects from robustness checks are arise in Table 6. Already again, ceremony row presents the after-effects of a abstracted admiration and the sample is stratified by newspaper. All rows use abundant mentions as the abased measure. For the Washington Post, abacus sites from alfresco of demography tracts increases the sample admeasurement significantly. All sites in states abutting New York Burghal could be mapped to a demography tract, so the robustness assay for including added sites is omitted. Likewise, all sites in the New York and Boston breadth samples accept an HRS score, so the robustness assay for excluding sites after an HRS account is omitted. Overall, the accessory estimates are abundantly constant with those of Table 5. Excluding the broadly discussed Love Canal, Hooker S-Area, and Stringfellow Acid Pits sites modifies this cessation alone slightly. The assurance on the accessory estimates for percent Hispanic charcoal positive, but nonwhite becomes abrogating in the Washington Post sample and is positive, but no best statistically significant, in the New York Times sample.
Table 6. Robustness checks and alternating stratifications, by newspaper
Table 7 examines the accord amid the cardinal of accessories accounting about a armpit in the Washington Post, New York Times, or Boston Globe and the continuance of armpit cleanup, as abstinent by the canicule delayed from the date a armpit is added to the NPL and the date that architecture is complete. This table letters coefficients from a Cox proportional hazards model; a absolute accessory represents an added likelihood of architecture actuality complete at any accustomed time. The larboard two columns use the abounding citizenry of sites, application the two added specific measures of media absorption and the appropriate two columns bind the sample to sites in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. The after-effects assume constant with those of added studies (e.g., Sigman Advertence Sigman2001; Burda and Harding Advertence Burda and Harding2014): added chancy sites booty best to remediate, and geography, captured actuality by state-level indicator variables, is additionally activated to the acceleration of cleanup. The admeasurement for nonwhite is cogent at the 10 percent level, advertence that remediation takes best in these neighborhoods. Media absorption does not arise to be affiliated to the clip of remediation.
Table 7. Continuance from advertisement to architecture complete (Cox proportional hazards)
We accept that the cardinal and types of accessories accounting about an NPL armpit would be accompanying to the characteristics of the demography tract, such as the allotment of nonwhite residents, the allotment of Hispanic residents, and average domiciliary income. To analyze our hypotheses, we accept a time aeon that corresponds to the alpha of the ecology amends movement. The access of CERCLA and the antecedent advertisement of over 750 NPL sites acquiesce us to abstraction the media at a time back editors had the befalling to baddest amid abundant NPL sites for coverage. Decidedly back accoutrement bounded or bounded sites, newspapers had a added best about what advice to accommodate in an article. Back a baby cardinal of sites accustomed a asymmetric allotment of attention, we alpha with a qualitative assay of how the book media covered the bristles best frequently mentioned sites. Two sites, Stringfellow Acid Pits and Love Canal, were in racially assorted demography tracts, but this actuality would be difficult to anticipate from the reporting. The added three sites were in predominantly white communities. The accessories that told the belief of victims best abundantly (e.g., Harris Advertence Harris1983) were about Times Beach, Missouri, amid in a demography amplitude that was over 98 percent white.
Given our assay of the bristles best covered sites, we analyze whether there is a arrangement in the broader abstracts advertence that the book media covered sites in predominantly white neighborhoods added intensely. Our empiric assay does not abutment this conclusion. We acquisition no absolute articulation amid the characteristics of a affiliation and the likelihood that an NPL armpit aural that affiliation gets mentioned in any of the three newspapers. To the amount there is any adverse in the advantage of sites, the arrangement is adverse to our hypothesis. Back the sample is stratified by newspaper, or by both bi-weekly and geographic area, the acuteness of advantage increases with the admeasurement of nonwhite (New York Times and Boston Globe) or Hispanic (Boston Globe) residents. This arrangement is best arresting back the sample is bound to New York Times advantage of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey sites and Boston Globe advantage of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine sites.
The qualitative assay of the bristles best frequently mentioned NPL sites and the statistical assay arise to accept adverse implications. Allowing the qualitative assay to acquaint the admiration of accessory estimates helps to accommodate the two approaches. The statistical assay reveals that the antecedent that the book media alone communities of blush is too simplistic. Accessories in all three affidavit frequently mentioned NPL sites in assorted communities. However, accessories that included some description of the adjacency or quotations from afflicted individuals were about rare, behindhand of location. Although bounded bread-and-butter altitude were occasionally included in the framing of a story, neither chase nor Hispanic agent was anytime advised as relevant. In added words, the framing of the story, in accession to the cardinal of articles, matters. The three measures of media absorption acclimated actuality alone partially ascendancy for that framing. Love Aqueduct provides an archetype of this. Because Love Aqueduct was mentioned in abounding accessories and was additionally amid in a about assorted demography tract, the admittance of this armpit contributed to absolute and statistically cogent accessory estimates for percent nonwhite in the New York Times sample (see Table 6). However, the New York Times accessories about Love Aqueduct never acknowledgment chase nor accede the plight of African American tenants active abreast the site. The bi-weekly covered a armpit in a assorted affiliation but alone an important amusing amends story.
This arrangement of newspapers advertisement about sites in disadvantaged communities but declining to anatomy those belief in the ambience of race, income, or ecology amends ability accept had implications for both the closing face-lifting of CERCLA and the ecology amends movement. The best to book accessories that bare descriptions of chase or the ambience of ecology amends may have, perversely, contributed to the acceptance of the Superfund affairs and, therefore, afflicted the policymaking processes to aggrandize and renew Superfund legislation. The aeon amid the access of CERCLA (1980) and its consecutive face-lifting (1986) was one that was embodied by beneath alertness to abutment behavior with poor or boyhood beneficiaries (Kluegel and Smith Advertence Kluegel and Smith1986, pp. 163–64). The amount to which media advantage able the acumen that Superfund benefited white banal victims of abuse may accept generated abutment for the face-lifting of the Superfund program. In the aboriginal 1980s, CERCLA had boundless accepted support: over 70 percent of respondents in accessible assessment polling accurate either continuing Superfund at accepted levels or accretion the banking abutment for the Superfund law (Hird Advertence Hird1994, p. 73).
On the added hand, if the book media had instead arise on disadvantaged communities by emphasizing characteristics like chase or adverse bread-and-butter conditions, such advertisement ability accept complemented the bulletin of civilian rights activists who were adopting acquaintance of ancestral and assets disparities in acknowledgment to baneful pollutants. Absorption from the media could accept helped facilitate added affiliation captivation or encouraged assembly and regulators to accede the affair of ecology amends earlier. This befalling never materialized. All aspects of media absorption advised in this article—the advantage of bristles arresting sites, a chase for all mentions of race, ethnicity, and bread-and-butter conditions, and a statistical assay of advantage accustomed by NPL sites—indicate that aloft newspapers bootless to back how NPL sites afflicted communities of color.
How To Identify And Write Proportions – How To Identify And Write Proportions
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