Earth Journalism Network

Internews Network developed the Earth Journalism Network (EJN) to empower and enable journalists from developing countries to cover the environment more effectively. EJN will establish networks of environmental journalists in countries where they don’t exist, and build their capacity where they do, through training workshops, support for production and distribution, and dispersing small grants.

Publications

Climate change: How to report the story of the century, by Earth Journalism Executive Director James Fahn, published in SciDevNet, March 16, 2009 – Reporting on climate change is an important but challenging task. James Fahn explains how to make your stories both accurate and engaging.

RECENT NEWS

• Earth Journalism Awards: Internews Announces 15 Winners and Launches the Global Public Award via Twitter and Facebook Vote, November 10, 2009
• Historic press briefing by US, Chinese, AOSIS, LDC, African climate change negotiators, October 8, 2009
• Concern for climate change, by Rina Saeed Khan in Dawn, August 23, 2009
• Fellowships Boost World Media Coverage in Critical Year for Climate Change, July 22, 2009
• Internews Launches Earth Journalism Awards Competition, June 5, 2009
• Climate Change Media Partnership invites applications for the 2009 fellowship programme, May 2009
• Internews helps Southern Journalists Hold Key Climate Negotiators to Account at UN Summit, December 12, 2008
• Poland Climate Change Conference, article in Columbia Journalism Review, November 26, 2008
• Climate-Change Media Boost for Millions of the Most Vulnerable, November 19, 2008
• Brave New World for Earth Journalism Network, September 2008
• Internews Monthly Newsletter: Protecting the Planet with the Power of Information, April 2008
• China’s Top TV Journalists Learn to Report Green, April 9, 2008
• Among World's Poor, Little Worry – For Now – Over Climate Change, Article by James Fahn, Executive Director of Internews' Earth Journalism Network. and Jeff Hodson, journalist and media trainer, World Politics Review, April 22, 2008
• Articles on Illicit Wildlife Trading in Southeast Asia – A series of articles investigating illicit wildlife trading in Southeast Asia is one result of a two-year project carried out by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) to boost the capacity of environmental journalism in the Lower Mekong region.

ACTIVITIES

China

EJN Executive Director James Fahn traveled to Beijing in May 2006 to deliver a lecture to the "salon" of environmental journalists which has been active in raising key issues in the press. He also contributed an article that was published in the China Daily and met with other potential partners.

In September 2006, EJN provided resource materials and people, including keynote speaker Gary Strieker, to a workshop on environmental reporting held in Beijing by the Capital Youth Journalists’ Association. Strieker, EJN's lead TV trainer and CNN International’s former chief environmental correspondent also spoke on corporate social responsibility at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai in May 2007.

EJN also joined with Internews China to produce a media conference on environmental law that focused on four important legal cases involving logging, water pollution, air pollution and urban development. Over the coming year, EJN plans to organize more workshops on pollution, climate change and environmental health in both Beijing and the South.

See also: Earth Journalism Network Goes Behind China’s Headlines (PDF), November 2006

Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos

EJN has launched a two-year project to build the capacity of environmental journalists in the lower Mekong region. In collaboration with the Vietnam Forum of Environmental Journalists, EJN has carried out three journalism training workshops that focused on biodiversity and related subjects, including conservation policies and sustainable livelihoods. Stories produced from a field trip to Tam Dao National Park in northern Vietnam resulted in the downsizing and review of an "eco-tourism" project slated for the area. The other two workshops – in central and southern Vietnam – were held in Bach Ma and Nui Chan national parks, respectively.

In Cambodia, EJN teamed up with the Royal University of Phnom Penh to produce a similar workshop that brought a group of journalists to Kirirom National Park and instructed them in specialized techniques to cover the environment. In February 2007, EJN supported a media workshop in Laos that focused on good governance and its relationship to the environment.

Over the coming year, fellowships will be awarded to journalists participating in the Vietnam and Cambodia workshops. EJN-supported academics are carrying out baseline studies on the current level of environmental journalism in Vietnam and Cambodia. A regional conference in August 2007 will bring together journalists from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and other countries for discussions on how they can cooperate and improve the quantity and quality of environmental coverage in the region.

EJN is now carrying out a climate change project in Vietnam that has entailed a study of media coverage of the subject and a brief workshop held in the northern province of Nghe An. In early 2008, we’ll be holding two more 5-day workshops, and our recent survey suggests such work is desperately needed. The 2007 UN Human Development Report 'Fighting Climate Change' singled out Vietnam as having over 22 million people at risk from global warming-related flooding, but the study reveals that media treatment of the issue remains marginal in Vietnam, despite a slight increase in 2007 from a baseline of zero coverage over a two-month period in 2006.

• Articles on Illicit Wildlife Trading in Southeast Asia (December 2007)
• Climate Change Coverage By The Vietnamese Media (December 2007)

Thailand

EJN’s base in Thailand has enabled Internews to co-sponsor some landmark workshops introducing regional journalists to environmental issues. The first, organized by Internews, took 13 journalists working in Thailand up to the highlands for six days where they learned about the complex interplay between farmers, forests, loggers and government, and the various approaches that would allow a balance between development and environmental concerns. The second workshop, organized by the Thai Society of Environmental Journalists, brought together Thai and regional journalists for two days to discuss key environmental issues such as dams, pipelines and forestry.

In July, 2006, EJN also teamed up with Internews’ Thai Media Support program to carry out a two-day seminar on environmental issues for 20 journalism students at Chiang Mai University.

Indonesia

EJN celebrated Earth Day, 2006 by sponsoring the launch of the Society of Indonesian Environmental Journalists at a conference at Tangkahan, on the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra. The event culminated with the signing of the Tangkahan Declaration, formally creating the Masyarakat Jurnalis Lingkungan Indonesia ("Society of Indonesian Environmental Journalists") and establishing its guiding principles. Participating members also elected an executive director: Harry Surjadi, a veteran environmental journalist who previously worked at the newspaper Kompas. Subsequently, in February, 2007, EJN supported an SIEJ workshop on marine and coastal resources that took place in northern Sulawesi, near the Bunaken Marine National Park.

See also: Society of Indonesian Environmental Journalists Launched on Earth Day (PDF), May 2006

Mexico

In Mexico, EJN has worked with a couple of national journalism networks to advance environmental coverage. It is supporting the consolidation of the Mexican Network of Environmental Journalists (REMPA) into an active organization through a conference that will take place in Xalapa in May, 2007. Previously in Xalapa, EJN joined up with a national women’s radio network named CIDEM on a four-day workshop in Xalapa that brought together 10 women journalists to study radio production, community-based forestry and gender issues. The participants visited a highland forest community seeking to follow a sustainable approach to natural resource use, and produced a series of radio stories.

See also: Mexican Journalists Discuss Environmental Issues in Veracruz – Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Holds First Training Session with Women’s Radio Collective (PDF)

MORE INFORMATION

Flyers about the Earth Journalism Network and its projects

Earth Journalism Network Information Sheet

LINKS

Alliance of Independent Journalists - Indonesia

Assignment Earth Video – Former CNN correspondent Gary Strieker has struck out on his own and formed the non-profit Environment News Trust. Strieker draws upon his decades of experience to script, shoot, edit and produce a series of 2-4 minute video stories on environmental issues that can be viewed on Yahoo.

Brazilian Network of Environmental Journalists

Center for Environmental Journalism

Colectivo de Investigación Desarrollo y Educación entre Mujeres (CIDEM)

Environment Writer

Ethiopian Environmental Journalists Association (EEJA) - Contact Argaw Ashine, Chairman, P.O. Box 17684, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

International Federation of Environmental Journalists

Knight Center for Environmental Journalism

A Land on Fire, the Environmental Consequences of the Southeast Asian Boom, by EJN Executive Director James Fahn

Periodistas Ambientales (a Mexican network of environmental journalists)

Society of Environmental Journalists

Thai Society of Environmental Journalists

Vietnam Forum of Environmental Journalists

CONTACT

James Fahn, Executive Director Earth Journalism Network