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Environmental Journalism

Environmental Journalism. What is it?. What is Journalism?. Merriam Webster: the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media. Huh?. Journalism:. T elling true stories , well and accurately.

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Environmental Journalism

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  1. Environmental Journalism What is it?

  2. What is Journalism? • Merriam Webster: • the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media

  3. Huh?

  4. Journalism: • Telling true stories, well and accurately. • Communicating information that will help people make sense of their world. • Getting the story behind the story, avoiding the spin, finding the truth. • Apublic trust with citizens to investigate and expose wrongs and trumpet rights. • Doug Saunders : “universal reflex of citizenship.” • Adding meaning to facts. • “Gathering, analyzing, and disseminating socially relevant information in a consistent, transparent, and honest way.” --Luis Santos • --Thanks to Gina Chen!

  5. What is Good News Writing? • What happened? • How has the world changed? • So what? • ABC: accuracy, brevity, clarity. • multiple authoritative, reliable sources • Quotes effectively • Provides context • balanced, unbiased • Shows the reader what happened; doesn’t tell the reader what to think.

  6. The five Ws and an H • Who • What • Where • When • Why • and How

  7. What is environmentalism? • Environmentalism, is a broad philosophy and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the state of the environment. • -Wikipedia

  8. Huh?

  9. Ok, really, what’s environmentalism? • "The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” • —Rachel Carson, 1954

  10. Paul Brooks, Rachel Carson’s editor: • Conservationists need words because what they are trying to do is to enlighten and inform: to change fundamental attitudes , not because they say so, but because they have the facts that will command such change.

  11. The Forest Beyond the Pyramid Most important & newsworthy Least Important; supporting details

  12. Michael Frome: • Environmental writing reaches deeper with beginning, middle, and end integrally joined. It thinks not simply of Who, What, When, Where, Why and How, but of species instead of an animal, a forest instead of a tree.

  13. … the Whole writing with a purpose…thinking about the whole, with breadth and perspective • --Michael Frome Asking deeper questions. --Bill McKibben

  14. Frome: More than reporting • Social service • Voice to struggle • Honesty and purpose • Risk and sacrifice • Care for the non-human world

  15. Are environmental reporters just tree huggers with a notebook?

  16. No, but get beyond the…

  17. Church of the Environment

  18. Report. Don’t Exhort. • People who want to write about the environment, care about the environment. That means they don’t think the way most people think. –Candy Page, BFP • You can’t assume everyone shares your values, speaks Ecologish or gives a shit about trees. • Make them care by showing them what’s true.

  19. Felicity Barringer • Good guys vs evil polluters is not always useful • Take the side of science

  20. Andrew Revkin • Convey what the science has revealed • What is not understood • Future research • Amount of uncertainty

  21. Revkin • Activism lies in choosing subjects like climate change and biodiversity loss that the media tend to shy away from because they don’t fit our norms: • Clear news “peg” • Risks relevant to daily life

  22.  “Environmental stories don’t break, they ooze.” • —Frank Allen, Ex-Wall Street Journal writer

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