By Debra KaufmanIn Miami, WTVJ-TV special projects producer Jeff Burnside discovered an area of the Florida coastline that was a true flood zone, based on data from the federal government’s new laser-measured elevation study.Then he found that new homes were being built there.“We talked to homeowners in this neighborhood who had no idea their neighborhood would be inundated as sea levels rise and hurricane storm surges hit,” said Burnside.Global warming is typically perceived as a story about far away — melting icecaps in the Arctic — and far in the future; both factors make the climate change story a hard sell to TV news directors and newspaper editors.“The challenge has been to convince the local news manager that global warming can be a local story,” said Burnside. “For this story, neighborhoods that never imagined they’d be potentially inundated realized for the first time that they could be.”Covering climate change has never been an easy task. For years, environmental journalists felt compelled to give equal time to the naysayers, but times have changed.“I don’t think you see this false balance as much as you used to,” said Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein. “On the Internet you have some people who, no matter what the science says and what the numbers show, won’t buy it. But they’re not scientists. It’s mainly political.”While the issue global warming been a major national environmental story for years, it now is also becoming an increasingly local one.Society of Environment Journalists President Christy George, who is special projects producer at Oregon Public Broadcasting, points to stories about the devastation the pine park beetle has created in the forests in the Rockies and widespread vector-born illnesses such as the West Nile virus as two examples of very visible and local global warming stories. “This story is getting

By Hillary AtkinIt’s a sign of the constantly shifting media landscape — television and print newsrooms in several major markets are being combined, led by Tribune Co., with merger operations either under way or scheduled soon in Los Angeles; Chicago; Hartford, Conn.; and Miami/Fort Lauderdale.It’s the beginning of a new business model. Even as some stations across the country are shuttering their news departments entirely, many others are adding even more news. The average network television affiliate has on about 4.5 hours of news a day, even as station revenue is down 20 percent to 30 percent this year due to the severe reduction of advertising dollars.At the same time, even with staff cutbacks, stations are beefing up their Web sites to become 24/7 sources of news. Something’s got to give, and for Tribune, which owns highly respected papers like the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, as well as local stations KTLA-TV and WGN-TV in those markets, the answer is fusing its newsrooms.In Chicago, there’s a breaking news desk in the Chicago Tribune that serves WGN Radio, WGN-TV, CLTV and the newspaper. It’s a shared assignment desk and shared Web sites, with the entities starting to combine reporting talent, and very much acting as one newsroom.“They are not economic decisions. These are decisions to be a smart content provider, and to continue to reinvent how we deliver our content,” said Steve Charlier, senior VP of news and operations for Tribune Broadcasting.“If you have multiple properties in a market turning variations of stories, why not get together and share information to provide it in the best way? I have content that belongs on the iPhone, on cable or an over-the-air channel or in a newspaper, and I have content that belongs on your laptop,” Charlier said. “You take a

By Jarre FeesSince the Internet reached its adolescence, both print and on-camera journalists have watched the gradual decline of the freelance market.But last year’s economic collapse dealt a heavy blow to writers, editors, news anchors and others, who now find themselves in a free-falling market that is saturated with professionals.Many of those journalists were able to find freelance work last year, only to discover that this year’s sinking market is much more crowded and, since no one knows how much further it is to the bottom, are being forced to pursue alternative employment.Unity: Journalists of Color’s recently released 2009 Layoff Tracker Report found that there have been 46,599 U.S. journalism jobs lost since Jan. 1, 2008.The U.S. Department of Labor, in its Occupational Outlook Handbook 2008-2009, predicts little or no change in employment for journalists through 2016. That statistic, of course, doesn’t include freelancers, who are already working just outside the system.Some journalists are trading their independence for more dependable lines of work — teaching jobs are available nationwide to qualified candidates. Other freelancers are turning to fields they’ve always been interested in but never had a chance to explore.When WPEC-TV in West Palm Beach, Fla., did not renew news anchor Terry Anzur’s contract in 2006 she said she welcomed the opportunity to return to Southern California, where she had previously served as co-anchor for KTLA-TV’s “News at Ten.”Unable to find another on-air job, she started Terry Anzur Coaching Services in 2007 to coach on-camera talent for TV stations in the United States and Canada. Anzur said she “had a great year in 2008, including four months preparing young journalists to cover the first multiparty democratic election in the Islamic Republic of Maldives,” but characterized 2009 as “a tough year because most stations have cut their training budgets to nothing.”The

By Allison J. WaldmanThe Radio-Television News Directors Association — to officially become known as the Radio Television Digital News Association Oct. 13 — every year presents one of the industry’s most important and valued awards honoring excellence in electronic journalism, the National Edward R. Murrow Award.This year’s national winners in television, who will be presented with their awards Oct. 12 at the RTNDA’s Edward R. Murrow Awards dinner in New York, represent a diversity of style, a commitment to excellence and an endeavor to emulate in many ways the work of the award’s namesake, Edward R. Murrow.“This is an award that really counts, it means an awful lot to all of us in our profession. The thing I like about the Murrow award is that the judging is done by our peers,” said Steve Capus, president of NBC News, which earned five Murrow awards this year, including the award for overall excellence. “Some of the best in our industry are the people who weigh in on these awards.”NBC News’ “American Story With Bob Dotson” earned two Murrows, one for news series and the other for writing. The “American Story” series epitomizes the quality of television feature stories. This award-winning submission included tales about a 74-year-old street salesman who hawks potato peelers by day and lives in a posh Park Avenue apartment, and the mothers who tend to the graves of their soldier sons who now reside in Section 60 of Arlington cemetery.“NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams” received three Murrows: overall excellence; breaking news for “Hurricane Gustav”; and continuing coverage for “Tip of the Spear.”The latter is a series of stories by reporter Richard Engel documenting the work of Viper Company from the front line in Afghanistan.“Richard is an old school reporter in a young body. He wants to be out

John Daley, general assignment reporter for KSL-TV in Salt Lake City, has spent 10 years working on stories as varied as the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, which the city hosted, and the subsequent bribery scandal, as well as the legislative beat at Utah’s Capitol Hill. During that time, he also came to specialize in investigative stories about the environment, transportation and air quality and has won a number of national and local awards, including the Earthwrite Environmental Award, the RTNDA Environmental Fellowship and the Society of Environmental Journalists Beat Reporting Award.Daley recently spoke with NewsPro correspondent Allison J. Waldman about the challenges of the beat and the range of skills it takes to do his job well.NewsPro: What are the challenges you face doing investigative environmental stories in your market?John Daley: They’re the ones we’re seeing everywhere in the industry. We used to have a much bigger staff, but we still have the same amount of news programming that we put on during the course of a day. We’re stretched more thinly than before and there’s way less time to work on long-term projects that require more digging. There’s no doubt about that.News Pro: Do you look for stories about the environment to investigate?Daley: As a general assignment reporter, you’re out and about a lot and you’re crossing paths with a lot of other people, and that can lead to story ideas and tips on this or that. I also cover legislative issues on Capitol Hill, and there are any number of stories that come out and you learn about just being there. News Pro: What happens when you have a story you want to do but there aren’t the resources at the stations to cover it?Daley: That happens from time to time, but my bosses are really supportive of good

By Debra KaufmanBig-name guests and a special focus on water will mark the 19th annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, being held from Oct. 7 to 11 in Madison, Wis.According to SEJ executive director Beth Parke, 820 people attended last year’s conference in Roanoke, Va., but she anticipates a 20 percent drop in attendance this year, due to the recession.It’s a tribute to this community that so many people do come to the conference,” she said. “People take vacation time and spend their own money to get there.”The conference will introduce attendees to some of the new faces and forces in the Obama administration. For the first time, a sitting Secretary of Agriculture — Tom Vilsack — will speak at the SEJ Conference. Also expected to speak, but not confirmed at press time, is Lisa Jackson, the new administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.Other high-level government speakers include Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality; and Jane Lubchenco, undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, and administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.With the 15th annual conference on climate change in Copenhagen only a few months away, the SEJ Conference will also closely examine climate change issues, with an opening plenary, “Countdown to Copenhagen,” kicked off by a keynote address by former Vice President Al Gore.The panel discussion that follows will be moderated by New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin and feature Sutley and Lubchenco; Changhua Wu, greater China director of The Climate Group; and James Rogers, chairman, president and CEO of Duke Energy Corp.“We have more big-name newsmakers than we have ever had,” said SEJ director of annual conferences Jay Letto, a founding member of SEJ, who notes that author/farmer Wendell Berry, who became the group’s 1,500th member at last year’s Roanoke

By Debra KaufmanA new survey of environmental reporters indicates that their biggest challenge is the limited resources of their jobs and the most crucial issue they cover is global warming.The poll, conducted by NewsPro in conjunction with the Society of Environmental Journalists, also found that:• They are encouraged by the American public’s generally raised level of consciousness about green issues.• They believe the advent of multimedia has had a great effect on the way they do their jobs.• They think the amount of coverage their news organization devotes

By Debra KaufmanAlthough the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) will be a hot spot of debate about how the world deals with global warming, few U.S. journalists, local or national, will be on hand — partly because of tighter budgets and partly because the conferences have historically proven difficult to cover on-scene.The meeting of policymakers, lobbyists and other interested parties will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, from Dec. 7-18. It will be the 15th such conference since the 1995 Conference of Parties in Berlin.“I wish we were going,” says KING-TV news director Mark Ginther, whose Belo-owned NBC affiliated station in Seattle is one of a handful in the United States to have a reporter dedicated to the environmental beat — Gary Chittim. “Being in Copenhagen would give us an edge. But it’s not in the budget.”A trip to Denmark isn’t simply too big of a line item on the budget. Covering a cabal of international policymakers doesn’t jibe with a local TV station’s mission. “Copenhagen is too big of a stretch to try to localize the story,” says Jim Parsons, investigative reporter at ABC-affiliated WTAE-TV, a Hearst-owned station in Pittsburgh.Jeff Burnside, special projects producer at NBC O&O WTVJ-TV in Miami, has closely covered environmental issues and climate change for many years, but he won’t be on a plane to Denmark in December, either. “Budgets have plummeted in local TV news beyond imagination,” he says. “We hardly have the money for an hour’s overtime, much less a trip to Copenhagen, and it’s really affected our ability to report.”“We’re relying on the national media to bring the Copenhagen story back,” he says. “From there, we can localize it.”Attending COP15 would be a natural for Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein, who has been covering climate change since 1998 when he

By Debra KaufmanWhen Barack Obama was elected president of the United States many environmental journalists felt optimistic that his call for transparency signaled easier days ahead for obtaining information from the Environmental Protection Agency.Now, nearly nine months into his administration, not everyone is sure that things have changed. “It’s way, way, way too early to judge how this administration is going to be on transparency issues,” said Ken Ward, chair of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ First Amendment Task Force and a staff writer at The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia. “On the other hand, the EPA is still insisting that EPA staffers shouldn’t be talking to the media, only PR people should. And they want questions in advance. If Obama believes in transparency, he’ll issue an order to cease this.”Under the Bush administration getting information from the EPA was slow and painful. “It was difficult for our members to get information,” said Ward. “Freedom of Information Act requests were not handled in a timely manner. There were a lot of situations where EPA officials weren’t allowed to talk to journalists and, when they were, the EPA insisted on having PR minders present.”Things got so bad that in September 2005 SEJ’s First Amendment Task Force issued a report, “A Flawed Tool — Environmental Reporters’ Experiences With the Freedom of Information Act,” and recommended that “actions by Congress, journalists and the public to better ensure that this democratizing law is carried out faithfully.”Fast-forward to 2009 and the new administration’s EPA. OMB Watch, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization formed in 1983 to shed light on the secrecy shrouding the White House Office of Management and Budget, has stated that the Obama administration’s high priority on transparency is bearing fruit most quickly at the EPA.“Across a range of issues, the EPA is