Environmental reporting | Why local matters: Sources

This course is designed to give journalists the skills required to investigate local environmental stories and recognise if and how they are linked to the biggest issue facing the planet: climate change.

Environmental Reporting

During the enrolment, please enter your full name as that will be the information written on your certificate.

Free

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01. Climate Change – What does it all mean?
02. Checking sources and information
03. Dealing with Data
04. The politics and money behind the story
05. Journalism Vs. Activism
06. Know Your Legal Rights
07. End of Course Survey

Questions? Feel free to Contact us.

In this course you will learn:

This course will guide you on how to expose the political and economic drivers behind many local environmental issues and where to turn for reliable data, sources and information. Interrogating the role of the journalist and treading the line between impartiality and activism is an important part of the course.

You’ll be guided through some key terminology to help with understanding and expert data and environmental reporters will help you recognise the unique role local journalists have to play in changing the narrative around climate change. It’s a critical time for local reporters trying to explain environmental issues to their audiences. This course aims to give you the tools to do that job.

Teachers in this course:

SVEN EGENTER

EDITOR IN CHIEF AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CLEAN ENERGY WIRE (CLEW)

SVEN is the Editor in Chief and Executive Director of Clean Energy Wire (CLEW). As well as writing about the energy transition in Germany and beyond, CLEW also trains journalists to help them understand and report on environmental and climate change solutions. He covered the German, Swiss and British economies during 12 years at Reuters, writing extensively about the financial crisis and was Chief Economics Correspondent, UK in London. He has a Master’s degree in Journalism from Boston University.

Catherine Mackie

Senior journalist

Catherine Mackie is an Editorial Associate at the Thomson Foundation. She’s a former BBC senior journalist with almost 30 years experience in front of and behind the camera. She’s a recipient of a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship at the University of Michigan.

Dr RICHARD DANBURY

ACADEMIC LAYWER, JOURNALIST AND FORMER CRIMINAL BARRISTER

Dr Danbury directs the MA in investigative journalism at City, University of London in the UK. He is the BBC’s advanced law trainer, and is on the Scott Trust Review Panel, the body that oversees content-related complaints about The Guardian newspaper. As a journalist with the BBC he was based in news and current affairs, and specialised in interviews and investigations. He has a doctorate in media law from Oxford University.

PATRICK GREENFIELD

ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTER, GUARDIAN MEDIA

Patrick is a reporter with Guardian Media writing about biodiversity loss, the climate crisis and possible solutions. Before working at the Guardian, he was a producer with CNN. He has a Master’s degree in International and Development Economics from Yale University.

SVEN EGENTER

EDITOR IN CHIEF AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CLEAN ENERGY WIRE (CLEW)

Leo Hickman

DIRECTOR AND EDITOR OF CARBON BRIEF

Leo is the director and editor of Carbon Brief, a UK-based website covering the latest developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy. They specialise in data-driven articles and graphics to help improve understanding of climate change. Before joining Carbon Brief he was a journalist, editor and author at the Guardian and was World Wildlife Fund-UK’s chief advisor on climate change. In 2020, he was named Editor of the Year by the Association of British Science Writers.

LAURA ROCHA

PRESIDENT, PERIODISTA POR EL PLANETA (Journalists for the Planet).

Laura Rocha is the President of Periodistas por el Planeta (Journalists for the Planet), an organisation of environmental journalists across Latin America who try to bring environmental and climate change stories to the attention of politicians and economists. She’s been covering environmental stories for 25 years and is currently a journalist at Infobae in Argentina. She has a Master’s degree in Journalism from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella-La Nación and a Master’s in Urban Economics from Universidad Di Tella (in progress).

Other Courses:

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Environmental reporting | Why local matters: Sources

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Every journalist wants their audience to trust them. In return the audience expects their journalist to be accurate, fair and impartial. Throw artificial intelligence (AI) into the mix and things can get trickier if you’re not prepared. AI-tools are hugely beneficial to so many newsrooms but they come at a cost. The cost, if you don’t have the right policies in place, can be reputational damage, legal trouble and damage to audience trust. So if you’re using AI or you plan it’s time to take the ethical approach.