41
Greening the
Newsroom:
Best practices
in teaching
environmental
journalism
By Beth Daley
I
’ve been fortunate enough to
teach journalism to scores of
high school students over the
past five years and watched
them confront and grapple with
the difficulties of journalism.
We all know it’s not as easy as it
looks. You have to gather accurate
information. You have to be fair,
even to people you may not like.
You have to put words on a page
in a hurry. It’s hard enough to
teach the basics of writing a simple
news story, let alone investigative
reporting techniques. They began testing drinking water
fountains in school hallways to see
what chemicals were present. This
pursuit taught them about primary
sources and original report ing. A
probe into a proposed new school
building revealed that it was being
built on an old dump with harmful
chemicals. That taught them
about public records. A simple
count of idling cars outside a high
school resulted in a powerful piece
about global warming reduction
strategies—and taught basic,
critical interviewing techniques.
One surprise in working with these
student reporters has been that—
overwhelmingly—they have a deep
interest in pursuing meaningful
stories about climate change.
They’re concerned about drinking
water. Pollution. Clean energy.
Coastal erosion. The list is long.
Yet their skills have not always
matched their ambitions. The Pulitzer Prize-winning non-
profit news outlet I work for,
InsideClimate News, has been
thinking hard about how best
to engage and inspire students
in the practice of environmental
journalism. We think it’s an
important goal: The ranks of
environmental journalists have
been hollowed out in the last
decade at the precise time climate
change and other environmental
issues are growing in importance
and relevance to our lives. It’s
why the Hearst Foundations
recently awarded us a grant to
launch an inaugural high school
environmental journalism
institute in New York City this
summer.
Some don’t know how to find
information, or became lost in the
vast sea of federal, state or local
environmental data. Others are
scared away by the polarization
and politicization around global
warming. Many fall into the trap
of false balance in aiming to avoid
controversy. Some accept green
washing without checking the
claims of a school administration—
or a Fortune 500 company. The end
result is stories that lack clarity and
impact on issues that require both.
Thanks to some good advice
from a teacher friend, I switched
teaching tactics. Now, instead of
teaching journalism or investigative
reporting as a broad discipline, I
teach journalism through the lens
of the environment. Since I began
doing so, students have awakened.
Teaching environmental reporting
covers the basics of journalism
but it can also educate students to
beware the spin of public relations
campaigns, how to communicate
science, develop topical and human
story ideas and, ultimately, have
real impact. Below are a few ideas
and techniques that have engaged
students I have worked with, and
taught them original reporting,
research, interviewing, sourcing and
many other skills.