On this 40th Anniversary of Earth Day,
Environmental Information Finds an Audience Around the Globe

Closing the Information Gap: a multimedia presentation

EJN launches Clean Tech Initiative with Events in Manila

One of the biggest challenges facing environmental journalism is the tendency for greater emphasis on reporting problems rather than solutions. To help correct this, Internews’ Earth Journalism Network is launching an initiative that will focus on the economic opportunities inherent for all countries to develop and disseminate clean energy technologies – from renewable energy sources to resource-efficient technologies to cleaner transportation options to better financing for all these efforts.

EJN has launched the initiative with two activities in Manila in March – one that brought half a dozen journalists from around the region to cover the World Bank-sponsored Climate Investment Forum, and the other a workshop carried out in partnership with ECO-Asia to train 13 Filipino journalists on policy issues surrounding the implementation of clean tech. Participants have produced over a dozen stories so far, marking EJN’s initial efforts to draw more business, finance and energy journalists onto a news beat that is too often left to science and environmental journalists.

Indonesian Journalists Mark Earth Day with Landmark Conference

The Society of Indonesian Environmental Journalists (SIEJ), one of EJN’s closest and most successful partners, will celebrate Earth Day this year with a major series of events that is expected to attract hundreds of journalists, students and members of the public. One of the highlights will be the second National Conference of Indonesian Environmental Journalists, following up on the EJN-supported launch of SIEJ three years ago, that will include a training workshop for reporters from throughout the archipelagic nation.

Other activities will include environmental journalism training for scores of students from the University of Indonesia, public seminars – on topics such as biodiversity, oil palm plantations, corporate social responsibility and climate change – photo exhibits, talk shows, and a performance by Pak Dodong, a creative musician who plays instruments made from waste. The Earth Day activities mark the culmination of a project supported by the Packard Foundation during which EJN has helped support SIEJ to become a legally registered, full-time organization with activities ranging from Fellowships to reporting trips to editorial roundtables.

Pakistani and Indian Journalists Discuss Trans-Boundary Water Issues

Among the most critical and controversial effects of climate change will be the projected impacts on fresh water supply in South Asia, a region already facing severe water stress amidst military tensions. So the ability of Rina Saeed Khan, a Pakistani journalist and one of the 2009 Earth Journalism Award winners, to organize a conference in late March that brought Indian journalists to Islamabad to meet with local colleagues and discuss trans-boundary water issues was no mean feat in its own right. The Earth Journalism Network’s Third Pole Project contributed one of its trainers, Joydeep Gupta, to help lead the workshop, which is expected to lead to future collaborations among journalists in the Himalayan region.

EJN Carries Out its First Training of Trainers Course on Climate Change

If climate change journalism is to really take off in the developing world, there needs to be a major increase in the capacity of local journalists to understand the complex issues involved. Building this capacity requires developing local trainers, who can teach local languages, newsrooms and classrooms. Sponsored by the World Bank Institutes for Sustainable Development and the Heising-Simons Foundation, EJN brought 21 environmental journalism leaders from around the world to Chiang Mai in early February to learn how to become better trainers.

With help from experienced Internews trainers, the journalists learned how to use more participatory educational techniques as an alternative to often dry, Powerpoint-dominated lectures favored all too frequently. They went on field trips, took part in role exercises, and practiced serving as trainers to an audience that provided instantaneous reviews and critiques. The participants also discussed future plans both for EJN as a whole and for activities in their home countries. Indeed, many – including Imelda Abano in the Philippines, Huma Beg in Pakistan, Patrick Luganda in East Africa and Luz Maria Helguero in Peru – have already put their new expertise to good use, and others will be doing so soon.

Free Online Course Helps Journalists Explain Climate Change

Internews and The Poynter Institute’s News University have launched a free online journalism course to give reporters and citizen journalists a firm grounding in the science and policy underlying climate change.

The course, Covering Climate Change, which includes approximately four hours of self-guided material, was developed for journalists from all countries and beats, regardless of medium. Geared toward the non-environmental reporter, the course covers all the basics needed to report on climate change with accuracy, depth and nuance.

Climate Change Media Partnership

The Copenhagen Summit may have been widely considered a disappointment, but in one aspect it was a success: EJN journalists from all over the world reported that it generated a huge amount of news and information to audiences many of whom had never before really considered climate change issues. Following its successful Fellowship program at COP15 in Copenhagen, the Climate Change Media Partnership plans to continue its activities in the coming year with a smaller program at climate talks planned for June in Bonn, and another major program sending 40 journalists to COP16 in Mexico at the end of the year. Stay tuned for more details.

More about Internews' Climate Change Reporting Program

• Honoring the World's Best Climate Change Reporting, December 17, 2009
• Helping Reporters Make Sense of Climate Change, December 3, 2009
• Catalyzing Coverage of Climate Change, November 12, 2009
• Ending the Silence around Climate Change in the Developing World, August 12, 2009

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• All previous Internews e-newsletters

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ABOUT INTERNEWS

Internews is an international media development organization whose mission is to empower local media worldwide to provide people with the news and information that they need, the ability to connect, and the means to make their voices heard. In 2004, Internews developed the Earth Journalism Network (EJN) to enable journalists from developing countries to cover the environment more effectively. The EJN establishes networks of environmental journalists in countries where they don’t exist, and builds their capacity where they do, through training workshops, support for production and distribution, and disbursing small grants. For more information visit www.internews.org and www.internews.eu