Before you explore, consider:
While all journalists endeavor to relay factual accounts, the impact of their reporting varies widely, from broad policy change to evoking a particular emotion in the individuals it reaches. In your opinion, what is the purpose of environmental reporting? What should it accomplish?
Pulitzer Center reporting to explore:
- Read: Prologue from "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change"
- Scroll through: Photos and videos throughout "Losing Earth"
- Listen to: Threshold podcast Season 2, Episode 1: "The Water Is Wide" 00:00 - 18:20
- Read/watch: "The Weight of Numbers: Air Pollution and PM2.5" – scroll down to “On the Ground,” then choose either Patna, India or Dhaka, Bangladesh.
- How well did these stories accomplish what you consider the purpose of environmental reporting to be?
- What tools did the journalists use to make their stories more effective?
The journalists behind “The Weight of Numbers” project are in the process of publishing profiles of seven locations around the world: Lagos, Nigeria; Santiago, Chile; Skopje, Macedonia; Visalia, California; and Shijiazhuang, China.
If you were a journalist covering climate change and the environment in your community, what image, location, person, group, problem, or solution would you focus on? What medium/media would you choose to convey your story, and why? Some of the media used by Pulitzer Center grantees in the reporting you explored are listed below.
This was developed as a preparatory lesson for students attending a workshop on climate change and environmental journalism at Tsinghua University in Beijing.