As the world prepares to mark Earth Day, we celebrate the media professionals who strive to get information about the environment and climate change to those who need it most, every day. Internews' Earth Journalism Network empowers and enables journalists to cover the environment more effectively. Our network includes journalists like Patrick Luganda, a media trainer and reporter from Uganda who has worked extensively with journalists all over Africa to help them cover these issues.

Recently in Shanghai, at a training convened by Internews, journalists tackled environmental health issues by creating a platform where a wide variety of professionals can share their ideas and experiences. In Indonesia, meanwhile, an EJN-supported workshop helped journalists investigate how to report on wetlands.

In his monthly column in the Columbia Journalism Review, James Fahn analyzes the media coverage of the Fukushima nuclear reactor that was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Indonesian Journalists Report on the Value of Wetlands

Seventeen journalists from across Indonesia interviewed experts and visited restored mangrove forests during a three-day workshop co-sponsored by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network in Bali.

Musa Abuban, a reporter for Jubi online, in Jayapura, Papua, said he would write stories about the successful restoration and community policing efforts to inspire residents of his own community. Many Papua residents cut down mangroves for firewood, he said. “I’m quite surprised to learn there are a lot of benefits from mangroves,” he said. (More)

Patrick Luganda, Supporting Africa’s Agriculture with Climate News

“Communicating climate change presents us with a fundamental challenge,” says Patrick Luganda, who, as a farmer and a journalist, has seen first-hand the importance of climate information, particularly for those who depend on agriculture for their livelihood.

Luganda is Chairman of the Network of Climate Journalists in the Greater Horn of Africa (NECJOGHA), one of several regional networks of journalists covering environmental issues worldwide that partners with Internews’ Earth Journalism Network. (More)

Journalists in Shanghai Tackle Environmental Health

A wide-ranging discussion of environmental science, corporate social responsibility, and journalism brought more than 30 reporters and domestic NGO leaders together in Shanghai in late March. Internews’ Earth Journalism Network also released a Chinese-language version of its popular Earth Journalism Toolkit (See the toolkit in English) at the workshop, which provides tips and resources for reporting and information-gathering on topics from nuclear power to forestry. Connections between climate issues and personal health were a focus of several presentations. (More)

The Climate Context in Japan

"The silver lining to this still-unfolding crisis has been the tremendous amount of renewed focus on the risks and benefits of nuclear power, a debate which spread in the press around the world, with numerous repercussions in the policy realm."
– James Fahn, Director of Internews' Earth Journalism Network

In his latest column in the Columbia Journalism Review, James Fahn, Director of Internews' Earth Journalism Network, writes about how Japan's earthquake, tsunami, and resulting nuclear crisis tested the media’s ability to frame nuclear debate in a world beset by energy risks:

When I was a young journalist working as the environment editor for a Thai newspaper back in the 1990s, one of the first things I learned was this: In order to cover the environment, you have to understand the energy sector—not just what it emits, but the politics, economics, and technical issues surrounding it. (More)

See also, Has ‘Climate’ Become a Dirty Word?, Fahn's March column in the Columbia Journalism Review

About Internews and the Earth Journalism Network

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.