Introduction

The previous two chapters examined cross cultural representations , from an East to West perspective and then from a West to East perspective. The intention of this final chapter of this book is to move away from the exploration of cross-cultural representations in order to consider the political dimension of travel journalism. Specifically, the genre’s engagement with the politics of environmentalism and sustainability. As McGaurr has found, the perception of travel journalism as little more than marketing content does not take account of occasions where it is possible to ‘locate particular examples of international travel journalism in the context of broader local and international political discourse’ (2010, p. 51). Such examples are perhaps indicative of circumstances where the professional values of the journalism industry (i.e., objectivity, balance, holding power to account etc.) become more explicitly foregrounded in travel journalism. McGaurr’s study focused on travel journalism that ‘mediates environmental conflict over forestry practices in Australia’s island state of Tasmania’ (ibid). The conflict between logging companies and the Tasmanian tourist board’s promotion of sustainable forms of tourism drew attention from a small number of high profile travel journalists, including A.A. Gill, who published print and web based articles and features raising awareness issue (p. 51–53). McGaurr’s study of this content found that its dual endeavour of promoting Tasmania and raising awareness of the environmental issues the region faces seemed to necessitate the intermingling of the traditional representational characteristics of the genre with ‘investigative news techniques’ (p. 55). In such instances, a more critical tone, one more typically associated with political reporting than travel journalism, appears to be present. McGaurr finds that this seems to be a conscious dimension of the working practices of the travel journalists included in her study, in that they appear to have

observed some genre protocols in their travel articles despite including criticisms of Tasmanian forestry practices, suggesting, perhaps, that they choose to make a pragmatic distinction between the tourism organisation providing them with assistance and the government funding that organization (p. 56).

In this way, travel journalism appears under certain circumstances, such as the influence of political discourse and the international news agenda, to make use of discursive conventions from different journalistic, media, and arguably literary genres (Spurr, 1999, p. 9). For McGaurr, this ‘interdiscursive’ potential in travel journalism, specifically, the potential for the genre to articulate and harness the interdependent relations between global and local, cultural and capital, environmental and political resonates with Beck’s vision of cosmopolitanism (p. 58). The interdependent nature of these relations ‘arises in a climate of heightened global threats, which creates an unavoidable pressure to cooperate’ and from this pressure results: ‘a shared space of responsibility and agency’ (Beck, 2006, p. 23). Consequently, Beck argues that the ideology of cosmopolitanism has journeyed from its philosophical origins to become

the defining feature of a new era, the era of reflexive modernity, in which national borders and differences are dissolving and must be renegotiated in accordance with the logic of a “politics of politics”. This is why a world that has become cosmopolitan urgently demands a new standpoint, the cosmopolitan outlook, from which we can grasp the social and political realities in which we live and act. Thus the cosmopolitan outlook is both the presupposition and the result of a conceptual reconfiguration of our modes of perception (p. 2)

In examining the ways in which travel journalism has the capability to meld different narrative tones and harness different discursive elements, McGaurr shows how Beck’s conception of cosmopolitanism provides a productive theoretical framework for examining not only the genre’s potential to raise awareness about the specific issue of environmental conflict in Tasmania but in more general terms its ability to intercede in political debate.

The coverage of environmental politics by mainstream news media outlets has received a considerable amount of academic attention (see, e.g., Cottle, 2000, 2003; Castells, 2004; Hansen & Cox, 2015; Lester, 2006, 2007; Hackett, Forde, Gunster, & Foxwell-Norton, 2017). However, beyond McGaurr’s study of travel journalism and environmental conflict in Tasmania, there has been little consideration of the potential in travel journalism to respond to environmental politics and the international news agenda. By way of exploring this further, this chapter focuses on a major environmentally focused news story that emerged from US President Trump’s administration during 2017 and 2018. On 26th April 2017, President Trump’s office issued two executive orders to review the size and status of 27 (of 129) ‘national monuments’ (Whitehouse.gov). A status assigned to areas of land deemed to contain ‘historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest’ that are consequently protected by the 1909 Antiquities Act (16 U.S.C. § 431 § 432, and § 433. U.S. Code collection). The review of the national monuments identified in the executive orders was undertaken by Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke. A draft memo was leaked to The Washington Post and published on 17th September 2017. It recommended modifying the management of a total of ten national monuments in order to ‘permit “traditional uses” now restricted within the monuments’ boundaries, such as grazing, logging, coal mining and commercial fishing’ (Elperin, 2017). Further, it advocated reducing the size of four national monuments—Utah’s vast Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou—by an unspecified amount. The memorandum caused a great deal of controversy and debate. In addition to concern over the potential damage such changes in usage could cause at national monument sites, its recommendations were widely perceived as an attack on environmentalism, for which the Trump administration would ‘face intense legal pushback from environmentalists, who will test to what extent the Antiquities Act can be used to reduce the footprint of national monuments, rather than expand it’ (Hart, 2017). The final report, released on 5th December 2017, also questioned prevailing forms of conservation which Zinke framed as standing in the way of historical entrepreneurial and commercial uses of the lands:

When landscape areas are designated and reserved as part of a monument, objects and large tracts of land are overlain by a more restrictive management regime, which mandates protection of the objects identified. This has the effect of narrowing the range of uses and limiting BLM’s [Bureau of Land Management] multiple-use mission…Such action especially harms rural communities in western states given that these towns have historically benefited and been economically sustained by grazing, mining and timber production on nearby public lands (Zinke, 2017, p. 7)

Previous administrations have also reduced the size of national monuments (Secretary Zinke Recommends Keeping Federal Lands in Federal Ownership). Arguably the most significant aspect of the report was the recommendation to drastically reduce the size of two national monuments located in the state of Utah; the 1.4 million acre Bears Ears site by 85% and the 1.9 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante site by 50% (Nordhaus, 2018). In so doing, areas such as these are now accessible to commercial mining, energy and real estate companies with the process seemingly involving little regulatory procedure:

A prospector for uranium, gold or other minerals would merely have to hammer poles in the ground or build rock piles demarcating the area they would like to claim, an archaic-seeming approach derived from an 1872 law. For oil and gas it is a lengthier process that, in theory, could see land auctioned off on EnergyNet, a website dubbed “the eBay for public lands”, later this year (‘Former national monuments shrunk by Trump to be opened for mining claims’, The Guardian, 2nd February, 2018)

The opening up of lands for environmentally sensitive activities such as mining has attracted widespread coverage and condemnation and no doubt further fuelled by the media profile of President Trump, this controversy received significant worldwide coverage throughout 2017 and the first half of 2018. For example, the day after the publication of Zinke’s report, in the UK, the Independent ran the headline: ‘If Obama cured cancer Trump would bring it back, says former Clinton staffer; Former aide lashes out after Mr. Trump cuts the size of an Obama-era monument’ (Shugerman, The Independent, 6th December 2017). Fall-out from Zinke’s report continued to unfold throughout 2018 sustaining a high level of news media coverage. One of the most controversial aspects to emerge from Zinke’s recommendation to cut the size of four national monuments centred on Grand Staircase-Escalante site in Utah. Speculation that the 46% cut in size of this national monument was in part motivated by the interests of Utah legislator, Mike Noel, who owned 40 acres of land within the original boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante. As executive director of Kane County Water Conservancy District, Noel had been a vocal advocate for a proposed $2 billion water pipeline development known as the Lake Powell pipeline. The revised boundaries make the construction of the pipeline considerably easier and would facilitate the delivery of ‘water to sites in Kane County that include Noel’s property’ (Elperin & Rein, 2018). However, the Department of Interior’s deputy inspector general Mary Kendall wrote to David Bernhardt (Zinke’s deputy) on 21st November 2018 indicating that her investigation found ‘no evidence that Noel influenced the DOI’s proposed revisions to the [monument’s] boundaries’ (Wallace, 2018). However, Chris Saeger, director of the Western Values Project (an advocacy group promoting land conservation across the Rocky Mountain West), has ‘criticized the Interior Department for not releasing the full investigative report’ (Friedman, 2018). Subsequently, Zinke resigned from office on 15th December 2018 following a further investigation into whether the sale of land owned by Zinke in White Fish, Montana to the Chairman of oil company, Halliburton, David Lesar, constituted a conflict of interests (Eilperin, Dawsey, & Fears, 2018).

Consequently, the nature and scale of this news story was such that it provides an opportunity to make a fuller assessment of the extent to which travel journalism engages with environmental politics and the mainstream news agenda. This will involve consideration of the ways in which environmental and political discourses manifest themselves in travel journalism. Specifically, the intention is to focus on ways in which the representational practices of other forms of journalism, such as political reporting, interject in the narrative structure of travel journalism on the national monuments story. How does the presence of such representational practices interact with the underlying commercial pressures and endeavours of travel journalism to promote destinations? Further, McGaurr’s view that travel journalism can function as a conduit for cosmopolitan perspectives and concerns provides a productive way of assessing the potential political and cultural value of the genre (2012, p. 45). In such instances travel journalism must seemingly move beyond the oft repeated claim that it is nothing more than ‘soft’ public relations derived content which serves no purpose beyond the promotion of travel as a form of consumerism (Hanusch, 2009, p. 624). However, what are the conditions under which travel journalism might function in this way? What of does the business model of travel journalism and its reliance on the tourism industry—to what extent does this facilitate or hinder its cosmopolitan potential? Is its cosmopolitan potential dependent upon an alignment or perhaps even a tension between political policy and the genre’s ability to ‘sell’ us destinations? Is, as McGaurr also wonders, the potential of travel journalism to be seen as form of cosmopolitanism really little more than an articulation of a ‘banal’ form of the concept (2012, p. 45)? Is it not so much about raising concern as it is about the articulation of environmental concerns ultimately serving as a device for consumption?

Method of Analysis

These lines of enquiry were explored in a sample of travel journalism drawn from a search of the Nexis newspaper database. The search parameters were set to include all national and regional newspapers in America across a date range of 1st January 2017 to 31st December 2018. The search excluded newswires. The date range encompassed the initial announcement of the national monuments review, the leaking of Zinke’s draft memorandum and its publication in The Washington Post on 17th September 2017 as well as the publication of the finalized report on 5th December 2017. Clearly, this was an ongoing and evolving story—indeed, the ramifications of the cutting in size and changes in land management of national monuments will continue to provoke debate. Similarly, it is likely that the actions of companies with, for example, energy or mining interests who engage in the acquisition of previously untouchable land will continue to be considered highly newsworthy for years to come. Nonetheless, this date range is sufficiently broad as to provide a detailed insight into the ways in which travel journalism responded to and engaged with the national monuments story. The inclusion of all American newspapers which are indexed on the Nexis database provided a basis on which to not only empirically quantify the extent of coverage this story obtained throughout all sections of each paper but also to assess the extent to which the national monuments story featured in their travel sections. Looking across this broad range of newspapers helps facilitate consideration of the relationship between the business model of each newspaper and the kinds of coverage given to this news story. The range of newspapers in this sample also spans the socio-economic spectrum of the American newspaper market place, and in so doing provides a basis from which to assess whether social stratification is an active dimension in the kinds of coverage each newspaper gave to the national monuments story. Given that this range of newspapers crosses America geographically, it will also be possible to examine whether there are instances where the proximity of a newspaper to prominent and/or controversial elements of the national monuments story—such as the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante sites in Utah—appears to correlate with the quantity and focus of the coverage it gives the story.

Consequently, this necessitated employing a mixed methodological approach. The initial empirical survey of all the newspaper content produced in the date range. This gives an indication of the extent to which travel journalism responds to major environmental news stories, providing insight into different newspapers views of the relevance of the national monuments story to readers of their travel pages. This was followed by the textual analysis of, what amounted to, a smaller sample of articles drawn from newspapers’ travel sections which focused on the national monuments story. This involved consideration of the ways in which travel journalism draws on ‘inter-discursive’ practices, such as employing modes of representation typically found in political and/or investigative journalism, in its coverage of the national monuments story. In so doing, this second phase of the analysis provides a basis on which to further examine the cosmopolitanism dimensions and potentialities of travel journalism.

The Nexis database search draws from 81 national and regional newspapers across America. Over the period of 1st January 2017 to 31st December 2018 these newspapers published 2785 articles that featured the words ‘Trump’ AND ‘National Monuments’. Given that The Washington Post published a leaked draft version of the Zinke report, it is perhaps not surprising that it features in the upper end of the table, having published 131 articles on the national monuments story (see Table 6.1 below). However, five newspapers produced more content on this news story, including a regional paper from the state of Maine, the Bangor Daily News (195) and The New York Times (254). It is perhaps not surprising that The Washington Post and The New York Times produced a lot of content on this news story given their liberal, pro-environmentalism and explicitly anti-Trump stance, and the fact that they that they have the largest national (and indeed, international) readerships of all US newspapers. Likewise, given the controversy surrounding the slashing in the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument sites in Utah, it is not surprising that the state’s leading paper The Salt Lake Tribune published nearly more than three times the number of articles on the national monuments story than any other newspaper (610) (Table 6.1).

Table 6.1 Top 20 (of 81) newspapers by coverage of the national monuments story
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Representations of the National Monuments News Story in Travel Journalism

As is to be expected the number of newspapers that featured content on the national monuments news story in their travel sections was significantly smaller, with coverage appearing in the internationally renowned, The New York Times (16) and The Washington Post (3), along with two regionally based newspapers, the St Paul Pioneer (Minesota) and The Salt Lake Tribune (Utah) also publishing one article each (Table 6.2). It should be noted that the total of 21 includes 5 variants of other articles. Of these, four articles are cases of copy being very lightly revised for different editions, such as printed and online versions, whilst the fifth has been much more substantially reworked. Like The New York Times and The Washington Post, the St Paul Pioneer and The Salt Lake Tribune produce both print and digital editions and all four newspapers are long established, originating in 1851, 1877, 1849 and 1871 respectively. Similarly, all four newspapers are what might be described as ‘papers of record’, with established reputations for accurate, authoritative and investigative journalism; The New York Times has won 125 Pulitzer prizes, The Washington Post 65 whilst the St Paul Pioneer and The Salt Lake Tribune winning four and three Pulitzer prizes respectively (https://www.pulitzer.org/). All three newspapers are aimed at a middle class, affluent and educated readership. The New York Times has the second highest circulation figures of across all US nationals (behind USA Today) with a daily readership of 483,701 whilst The Washington Post has a readership of 254,379 (https://www.cision.com/us/2019/01/top-ten-us-daily-newspapers/). The web edition of The New York Times generated 2.33 million paid subscriptions in 2017 with The Washington Post attracting 1 million digital subscribers (https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/26/media/washington-post-digital-subscriptions/index.html). By contrast, St Paul Pioneer and The Salt Lake Tribune are inherently more regional and national in their focus. Recent figures from 2013 indicate that The St Paul Pioneer has a daily circulation of approximately 208,280, whilst its web based edition attracted 2.6 million unique visitors per month (https://www.minnpost.com/twin-cities-business/2013/05/strib-pipress-post-circulation-gains-see-online-growth/). Similarly, figures from 2014 indicate that The Salt Lake Tribune had a weekday print circulation of approximately 80,818 with its web edition attracts in the region of 2.9 million unique visitors per month (http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=57949237&itype=CMSID).

Table 6.2 Content on national monuments in travel pages
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The sample size of travel journalism covering the national monuments story is, expectedly, very small. Nonetheless, in quantifying the coverage of the national monuments story by month across all sections of all US newspapers and comparing it to the by month travel journalism coverage, it is possible to identify some correlations. In keeping with the typical news cycle of newspapers the bulk of the content on this news story appeared in the days immediately before and after the three key dates in the national monuments news story, that is, Department of Interior released a list of monuments under review under the President’s Executive Order 13792, issued 26th April 2017, the publication of Zinke’s leaked draft memorandum on 17th September 2017 and the publication of his final report on 5th December 2017—see Fig. 6.1. Clearly, the small sample size of the travel journalism content precludes the possibility of making a definitive judgement as to the extent to which it was responsive to the mainstream news media’s presentation of the unfolding developments in the story. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that, though they appear to lag 2–4 weeks behind, the instances of travel journalism coverage broadly correspond with the peaks in the coverage of the story across all the sections of the newspapers (Fig. 6.2).

Fig. 6.1
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By month coverage of the national monuments story across all US newspapers listed on Nexis

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Fig. 6.2
figure 2

By month travel journalism coverage of the national monuments story

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Despite the differences in national/international and regional/national focuses of the newspapers, all four have discreet travel ‘sections’. The content produced in each travel section is typical of professionally produced, newspaper published travel journalism, which Hanusch and Fürsich note is characterized by the ‘blending of information with advice and guidance as well as with entertainment and relaxation’ (2014: 10). Likewise, the vast majority of the travel content found in all four newspapers is in the style of the traditional travel narrative—it is written in the first person with the emphasis on enabling the reader to see through the author’s eyes and imagine themselves in the location. Mike Seeley’s ‘Landscapes, Art and Aliens’ in The New York Times is indicative of this narrative form:

As I blazed my own trail on foot, I heard nothing, save for a few chatty insects and the wind. Beyond me was sky and rock and unkempt desert. I felt as small as a granule of sand, dwarfed by the natural world. Sinking into the earth seemed a real possibility, and a profound reminder that this ground was not meant for tires or sneakers, but for paws and hooves (22nd April, 2018)

This type of content tends not to ‘create new representations but rather fall on previously established organizing narratives…these narratives are shared among popular cultural products providing frames of reference that confirm and legitimize representations’ (Santos, 2004: 123). In terms of this sample of travel journalism, the national monument sites are framed within long established cultural narratives that cast them among the last remaining natural environments of the nation. There is a sense that these spaces are remnants of the American frontier—not so in terms which evoke the rich and romanticized myths of the Wild West or, indeed, those which critique the colonialist violence of European settlers and, later, US territorial acquisition. Rather, simply that these are frontier zones, spaces of liminality through which America’s past can be accessed:

Back at the creek, I took a short detour to visit the eponymous homestead of this portion of the trail. Here lies the old foundation of a cabin, where its resident raised goats and made cheese circa 1938. On the shady slope from what remains of this homesteader’s claim, I stuck my hands into the cool rushing creek (Tsui, B, ‘After Wildfires, a Trail of Rebirth’ in The New York Times, 30th July, 2017)

Intrinsic to the construction of the national monuments as frontier zones, is their characteristic unchanging wilderness. It is no doubt the case that national monuments have historically been perceived as somewhat second class—the ‘lesser stones to be juxtaposed with the crown jewels of the…expansive and monumentally scenic national parks’ (Rothman, 1986, p. 45). However, in this sample of travel journalism then tend to be presented as less managed and more ‘wild’ than national parks. These are some of the few remaining places of real adventure. James Card writes of his exploration of the Golden Butte national monument: ‘I saw only two other vehicles and not a single person. The possibility of nobody coming along to help you for a very long time is real’ (‘Breathtaking Beauty’, The New York Times, 30th July 2017). The distinction between managed nature and ‘real’ wilderness is further elaborated upon by Stephen Nash writing of his through the Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument:

This was the last area of the continental United States to be mapped, Mr. Miller told me. Trailheads may be signed, but the trails themselves usually aren’t. They are not maintained, and often they aren’t on maps, either. “The visitor experience is intentionally different from what people expect at a national park,” he said. “The Grand Staircase is really a wild place. It’s easy to get in trouble, if you’re not prepared.” (‘Quiet Trails and Questions at 3 U.S. Monuments’, The New York Times, 17th December 2017)

In this way, articles evaluate locations and instruct their readers as to the tourism practices of specific locations, providing them with a sense of what to do and, crucially in commercial terms, how to do it. For example, Dina Mishev’s article in The Washington Post ‘An Appetizing time in Utah’ is premised on a driving, hiking and culinary tour in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument site and her mix of adventure, culture and consumer advice typifies much of the content in this sample:

I figure if I hike about two miles down the canyon from the trailhead on the Burr Trail Scenic Backway and then retrace my route, I’ll have just enough time to drive back to Boulder, check in at the Boulder Mountain Lodge—which is the only lodging “downtown”—and shower before dinner (Mishev, The Washington Post, 27th May 2018)

A by-product of content of this kind arguably is that it acts as an intermediary between the tourism industry and their potential customers. As noted in Chapter 4 a secondary function of such material is its potential to provide entertainment and vicarious pleasure to the reader as part of the newspapers’ content ‘package’ designed to encourage their continued consumption of the newspaper.

It is important to note that The New York Times has a strict policy of not publishing ‘articles that grow out of trips paid for or in any way subsidized by an airline, hotel, tourist board or other organization with an interest, direct or indirect, in the subject of an article’ (nytimes.com). By contrast, the other newspapers—like the majority of newspapers—do rely on content that is subsidized by commercial organizations and/or derived from public relations material. The New York Times’s travel section submission policy no doubt facilitates giving coverage to politically sensitive issues. This can perhaps help account for the fact that it produced more travel journalism features on the national monuments story than any other paper. However, though the paper is not economically constrained by a dependency on the tourism industry for travel content, this does not appear to result in it presenting such content in substantially different ways. It seems to be a case of a greater quantity of similar rather than more differentiated content.

One point of difference, though, is that the smaller regional papers make much more fleeting and neutral references to the review of the national monuments. The article from the St Paul Pioneer simply states: ‘Trump takes rare step to reduce 2 national monuments in Utah’ (O’Rourke Hayes, L, ‘5 family travel destinations for the new year’ 15th December, 2017). Similarly, The Salt Lake Tribune refers to the Bears Ears national monument in Utah as being ‘…now part of the recent review ordered by the Trump administration’ (Wharton, 2017). This is perhaps not surprising—like most Western countries, America’s regional press has declined dramatically in recent decades as advertising revenue transitions from print to more far reaching and lucrative digital media formats (Power, Vera Zambrano, & Baisnee, 2015, p. 41). The commercial pressures on papers like the St Paul Pioneer and The Salt Lake Tribune are compounded by the fact that their readerships are concentrated in relatively small and geographically bounded areas. They cannot afford to alienate sections of the communities they serve. The fact that these papers produced one travel article each in the date range of this sample with each article only containing very brief references to the national monuments review, could be perceived as an indication that they contribute little, if anything, to the idea that travel journalism can engage with broader, political discourses. However, brief those these references are, they are nonetheless references to a story that was very prominent in America’s mainstream domestic news coverage throughout 2017 and 2018. Indeed, the fact that a brief reference can be made without recourse to a more detailed explanation is an indication of how well established this story had become in the eyes of public. Whilst these references may have little empirical value they are situated within content that frames its promotion of particular tourism experiences through broader discursive strategies—such as nostalgia for wilderness and enthusiasm for outdoor adventure. Consequently, these articles can be seen as indicative of a more indirect way in which travel journalism can engage politically—in this case in the endeavour of conveying a sense of concern for the environment.

The content from The New York Times and The Washington Post makes much more detailed references to the Trump administration’s review of the national monument. The first person, traditional narrative structure of the majority of this content not only invites us walk in the travel journalists’ footsteps as they explore the localities of different national monuments it also engages us with the ramifications of Zinke’s report. Walking in the travel journalists’ footsteps the reader encounters the physical environment of national monuments. There is a strong sense of loss here, of how the wilderness, the history and the culture of these places will change irrevocably. For example, Tsui’s article ‘After Wildfires, a Trail of Rebirth’ in The New York Times opens with: ‘This week, we visit three national monuments (more than two dozen are under review by the Trump ad-ministration and could be made smaller and opened to logging and mining)…’ (30th July 2017). Indeed, several of the articles in this sample are predicated on encouraging readers to visit national monuments before their size is reduced and/or the management of land use changed. Often, descriptions of the nature, of the heritage of these places are interlaced with ones less typical of travel journalism that borrow narrative devices and representational techniques from news and political reportage (see, e.g.; Buozis & Creech, 2018, p. 1434). Nash in the second paragraph example below shifts to a more ‘hard news’ style of what Tuchman (1978) refers to as ‘facticity’. This has the effect of reinforcing the cultural value and environmental status of the national monuments through the dramatic juxtaposition of passages with passionately showcase their natural beauty and heritage with those which fearfully warn of the legislation that will take this away:

For two decades, monument status has protected this mostly uninhabited high-desert region where ancestral Native American rock art and ruins are on view, backcountry hiking is accelerating in popularity, kayakers ply the Escalante River, rock climbers ascend towers and canyon walls, and the fossils of newly discovered species of dinosaurs are unearthed every few years.

The geology is durable, but national monuments may no longer be. President Donald Trump appeared in Salt Lake City on Monday to proclaim that he will cut this one to half its current size, opening the other half to mining, drilling, motorized recreation and various industrial uses. An adjacent national monument, the 2,000-square-mile Bears Ears, will shrink by 85 percent (Nash, S ‘Quiet Trails and Questions at 3 U.S. Monuments’, The New York Times, 17th December 2017)

There is a very palpable sense of loss and outrage in articles such as Nash’s. There is a very deeply held feeling that the recommendations arising from Zinke’s report will cause irreversible environmental harm. In part at least, this outrage is no doubt borne out of the fact that Zinke’s report does not discuss the environmental consequences of its recommendations: the report does not contain any scientific data on the environment. Nor does the report offer any empirical evidence to support its central claim that reducing the size of specific national monuments would aid their local economies. Rather, the motivations for the review of the national monuments and the justification for Zinke’s recommendations are presented in terms of his report being attuned to a groundswell of local opinion. That the designation of national monument status is not in the interests of local residents; whereas the report is indicative of the Trump administration (re) engaging public opinion:

Opponents of monuments primarily supported rescinding or modifying the existing monuments to protect traditional multiple use, and those most concerned were often local residents associated with industries such as grazing, timber production, mining, hunting and fishing, and motorized recreation. Opponents point to other cases where monument designation has resulted in reduced public access, road closures, hunting and fishing restrictions, multiple and confusing management plans, reduced grazing allotments and timber production, and pressure applied to private landowners to sell their land encompassed by or adjacent to a monument (Zinke, 2017, p. 3)

Alongside expressions of loss and outrage, some of the articles in this sample also engage in these broader discussions about the land management and uses of national monument sites. Indeed, Seeley’s article echoes some of Zinke’s claims regarding a lack of clarity of the designation and land management of some national monuments. Seeley describes asking a local shop owner how ‘to access the grounds of the 704,000-acre [Basin and Range, Nevada] national monument, which is roughly twice the size of Los Angeles. He told me I’m “about the second” person to ever make this request of him in the 2 years since President Obama signed an order protecting the land’ (‘Landscapes, Art and Aliens’ The New York Times, 22nd April, 2018). Evidently, not only is there a lack of clarity over the management and accessibility of this national monument but, more fundamentally, the national monument status of this land is seemingly of little interest to the general public.

Many of the articles in this sample acknowledge the historical decline in traditional industries in national monument areas. For the most part, though, such activities are framed as being detrimental to the natural environment. For example, James Card’s article ‘Breathtaking Beauty’ acknowledges that there was once a settlement on the hillside of Gold Butte: ‘At one time, this spot had a post office, store, saloon and hotel. An estimated 2000 miners lived here—mostly in tents—during its peak in 1908…The boom died off in 1910’ (The New York Times, 30th July, 2017). However, this comes amidst describing the abundance of nature in the desert. In this sense, it is a salutary illustration of the power of nature to overcome historical human incursions rather than an acceptance of need to derive commerce from the land.

Writing about Cascade-Siskiyou national monument in Oregon, Courtney Sherwood notes that ‘timber once employed 80,000 people statewide, but that’s fallen to 5300 jobs as wood harvests have moved abroad, the sector has grown more efficient and environmental restrictions have limited logging both inside and outside the monument’ (‘Lillies and Loggers at Cascade-Siskiyou’, The New York Times, 17th December 2017). In this region traditional trades such as logging have given way to forms of employment which service the burgeoning tourism industry, in the form of ski resorts, hotels and restaurants.

In essence this debate about how to manage and use land strikes at the very heart of Trump’s vision of America. It is an indication of his administration’s acknowledgement of communities left unemployable as they are outmoded by the forces of global capitalism. The Zinke review clearly sought to frame itself in a way that drew heavily on Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ election winning slogan. Clearly, this resonates with certain sections of communities. Sherwood quotes Tom Mallams, the Klamath County Commissioner, who in a discussion on Oregon Public Broadcasting radio program on the Cascade-Siskiyou monument argued that ‘“Tourism jobs are not family wage jobs,”…“Timber jobs are family-wage jobs”. (‘Lillies and Loggers at Cascade-Siskiyou’, The New York Times, 17th December 2017). Certainly, it is possible to see this as symptomatic of broader debates about globalization, the ‘gig’ economy and the changing nature of employment. However, in the more localized context this ‘argument that would appear to pit one endangered species, the logger, against countless others in the expanded Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument’ creating a deep local divide evidenced by the of ‘Dueling “NO SISKIYOU MONUMENT” and “YES MONUMENT!” signs posted at restaurants and rental cabins’ (Sherwood, ‘Lillies and Loggers at Cascade-Siskiyou’, The New York Times, 17th December 2017).

Conclusion

As indicated above, Zinke’s report fails to include an empirical evidence to support the view that national monument designation is stifling local economies. It is also worth noting that the articles in this sample do not provide any data to support the counter view that tourism generated in and around national monuments is making a positive contribution to local economies. Whilst local voices on both sides of this debate are present in these articles, ultimately, the economic aspects of this debate are passed over with precedence given to the view that Zinke’s recommendations are detrimental to the environment. Here again there is no recourse to scientific data rather this is framed dramatically with descriptions of the rich cultural heritage of the landscape being juxtaposed with stark references to drilling and logging. In the majority of the articles under consideration here this sentiment is melded into the first person, ‘walking in the footsteps’ of the journalist traditional travel narrative structure. Indeed, whilst this structure is most commonly deployed as a means of promoting tourist activities and associated forms of consumerism, it is evident how strikingly effective this narrative structure is in engaging the reader with the ramifications of Zinke’s report. The representational tropes that enable the reader to imaginatively wander the ‘red-rock canyons, craggy cactuses, stacks of boulders, and Lilliputian forests’ of, for example, the Basin and Range national monument can be equally effective in engaging the reader with imagining what might be taken away (Seely ‘Landscapes, Art and Aliens’ The New York Times, 22nd April 2018).

In this way, perhaps the lack of recourse empirical evidence to dispute the recommendations of Zinke’s report suggests that the real battle ground of this debate is not confined to consideration of how best to develop thriving local economies or the most effective forms of land management. Rather, it seems that these articles, and by implication the readers they are aimed at, view these issues in more deeply riven ideological terms. This is presented as an attack on liberal, predominantly middle class values—values that embraced land conservation, that embrace discourses of environmentalism. An attack being metered out in the name of the working class, rural conservatives—communities Trump has framed as being politically disenfranchised under the Obama administration. This is explicitly evident in Seely’s article ‘Landscapes, Art and Aliens’, where Patrick Donnelly, the Nevada state director for the Center for Biological Diversity, is quoted as asking: ‘But do you think public landscape art is a factor for the Trump Administration? If anything, that would motivate them to deregulate [the land] to piss off the liberals’ (The New York Times, 22nd April, 2018). Similarly, in Nash’s article ‘Heated Politics, Precious Ruins’ there is an explicit sense of forces at work to destabilize the prevailing acceptance of environmental discourse. Nash recounts a protest in 2014 staged by recreational A.T.V (all-terrain vehicles) riders—some were bearing assault rifles—over access to Recapture Canyon, located within Bears Ears national monument site.

One of the principal organizers was Mr. Lyman, the county commissioner. He spent 10 days in jail as a result. Mr. Lyman still holds office, and was one of the anti-monument dignitaries who met several times with Mr. Zinke. The Native American representatives had about an hour with Mr. Zinke at the end of his four-day listening tour, and the nonprofit Friends of Cedar Mesa representative got 35 minutes. Parts of Recapture Canyon have recently been reopened to A.T.V.s. (The New York Times, 30th July, 2017)

Articles such as those discussed here are still engaged in the creative and commercial endeavour of promoting specific travel experiences. In this sense, it is possible that the intervention of these articles in the mainstream news agenda could be seen as not being motivated by the journalistic endeavour of holding power to account but rather as seizing on a major news story precisely because of the commercial opportunities it affords. It is, however, not possible to disentangle these motivations with any certainty and to attempt to do so is to ignore the financial logic of print based travel journalism. Its ability to engage in the mainstream news agenda is foregrounded on the commercial opportunities that such an engagement might afford. After all, travel journalism is content produced in order to promote locations and tourism experiences for consumption by readers and/or for their entertainment and vicarious enjoyment. This is not to suggest that such content can only be banal, opportunistic and not ‘worthy’ but rather it is important to understand articles such as the ones discussed here in terms of the economic motivations under which they are produced. Travel journalism can engage with major news stories such as the national monuments story, but it does so from within the confines of the ‘high market orientation’ of the genre. This engagement occurs in several ways. In the articles from the St Paul Pioneer and The Salt Lake Tribune it is possible to see the discursive positioning of content as conveying a more subtle, indirect form of concern about land use reform and environmental damage. The articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post are indicative of a more explicit, more direct form of engagement. Typically, first person, traditional travel narrative structures were deployed, engaging readers with the national monuments debate as well as the broader political and environmental discourses this debate was borne out of. In such moments it is possible to see the ways in which modes of representation more characteristic of news and current affairs journalism become melded in amongst descriptive techniques designed primarily to convey to us senses of place, culture, history and people. Drawing on Wolfsfeld’s study of the relationship between media sources and antagonists in situations of political conflict (1997), McGaurr notes that travel journalism can in relation to environmental issues convey:

“constructive” criticism of […] policies if, from a media-branding perspective, it is presented as being in the best interests of readers and—in the long run—the destination itself. This framing enables powerful travel media institutions that brand themselves as honest, environmentally responsible and/or discerning an opportunity to circulate politically charged meanings and symbols within a cosmopolitan discourse that is still compatible with their own participation in the tourism industry (2015, p. 20)

Consequently, the travel content of all four newspapers very much reflects the political stance of each newspaper and its readers buy into this political perspective. It is on these terms that such content is indicative of an avowedly cosmopolitan tendency in travel journalism—it raises awareness and facilitates ‘social reflexivity’ (McGaurr, 2010, p. 60). In this way, the perspective of the travel journalism sampled here resonates with Beck’s work on ‘Cosmopolitan communities of climate risk’ (Beck, Blok, Tyfield, & Yueyue Zang, 2013). Clearly, Beck is principally referring to climate change on a global scale as a result of mass migration. However, his definition cosmopolitanism as emerging from ‘constellations of social actors, arising from common experiences of mediated climatic threats, organized around pragmatic reasoning of causal relations and responsibilities, and thereby potentially enabling collective action’ seems to encapsulate the intentions of the travel journalism discussed here (Beck et al., 2013, p. 2). This travel journalism can be seen as functioning as a counterpoint to the perception that the politics of Trump are about closing down social reflexivity. In this sense, it would seem travel journalism has cosmopolitan potential and can, under circumstances such as those discussed here, be intensely political. This is not advertorial, this is not neutral and balanced journalism; this is journalism that seeks to defend a clear set of ideological positions.