Journalism & Media

By BILL DAWSON

The Beat usually examines recent coverage of environmental issues. This time around, though, The Beat looks at the environmental beat itself — specifically, at a couple of recent developments related to the training of journalists to cover environmental issues.

The first event was the October announcement that Columbia University was suspending for review its two-year, dual-degree graduate program leading to one master's degree in journalism and another in environmental science.

The digital age of environmental journalism has brought with it an ugly underbelly characterized by increasingly bitter personal exchanges and accusations and a sucking-up of countless hours of productive reporting time and effort. How reporters handle these distractions may shape how well the American public understands, or doesn't understand, the climate challenge they and future generations will face.

Non-profit media, online media, freelancers, student journalists, and even some mainstream media are having trouble getting credentials to cover the climate treaty talks in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18, 2009. While one root of the problem may be capacity of the building, a key issue is whether non-profits, bloggers, and freelancers are truly legitimate media.

Environmental journalists working for local news media outlets may want to check out the EPA ZIP code lookup tool for discovering potential stories in their areas.