April is Earth Month and, for 43 years, April 22 has marked Earth Day, a worldwide celebration to increase awareness and appreciation of our natural environment.
Journalistic coverage of environment issues is important, but many news outlets have eliminated the environmental beat as they look to streamline their reporting and cut costs. Today, there are only about a dozen reporters covering the environment for the nation's top five newspapers1. The Associated Press, the largest U.S. news service, no longer has a dedicated environment report, and instead relies on its science and health reporters to cover the topic. Public media fills much of the gap in environmental news coverage through national programming shows such as PBS NewsHour and NOVA, as well as local specials, such as Detroit Public Television's Great Lakes Now, and WCNY's Erie Canal Minutes. In the Pacific Northwest, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) is leading public media's coverage of localized environmental issues with two reporting initiatives, Ecotrope and EarthFix.
Ecotrope is OPB's environmentally-focused journalism website that provides in-depth coverage on the Northwest's most pressing issues including: renewable energy, fish and wildlife protection, and land use. The title of the initiative combines the prefix “eco” —relating to the environment or ecology — and “trope,” which comes from the Greek word “tropos,” meaning “turn or a change.” And that is exactly what OPB is doing: changing the way people talk about the environment.
Ecotrope's main reporter, as well as online curator and moderator, Cassandra Profita, does original reporting on a regional scale, providing local citizens with new perspectives on nature and the environment Some recent topics that Profita has addressed include Are “Compostable” Products Really Compostable?, Three Environmental Issues in the State of the Union, and the fight to label genetically modified salmon. Ecotrope then expands the conversation through online conversations, enabling it to grow beyond Oregon and spark conversations about similar issues in other parts of the country.
"With Ecotrope, OPB is covering news and ideas in a different way. News becomes more than a report on radio or TV. It flows like a stream of information that begins with exceptional, original reporting about key news of the day, and becomes increasingly rich through a collaborative exchange with vetted sources," says Steve Bass, president and CEO of Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Ecotrope was made possible through funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as part of an initiative to increase local journalism in communities across the country. Oregon Public Broadcasting was one of 12 public media stations to receive funding that allowed it to add a full-time reporter to its news team to focus on a subject of local interest in the community such as the environment. The 12 stations, including OPB, make up the NPR ARGO Network, which allows for content sharing between local stations and NPR, creating a wider distribution for local stories with national impact.
In addition to Ecotrope, OPB is also leading a consortium of six other public media stations that have come together to create EarthFix, one of several public media station collaborations across the country, called Local Journalism Centers, also made possible by funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Local Journalism Centers report on issues important to a specific region, such as immigration in the Southwest, food and fuel issues in the Midwest, and education in the South.
In the Pacific Northwest, where the economy and lifestyle is entwined with the environment, EarthFix is aiming to become the primary source for regional environmental coverage. With reporters covering the region from Portland, Seattle, Pullman, Boise, and Medford, Ore., EarthFix is uniquely positioned to help citizens examine how environmental policies unfold in their backyard and to explore how local actions intersect with national issues. EarthFix produces daily online and broadcast news coverage as well as community engagement activities focused renewable energy, natural resources, sustainability, and environmental science.
"This multimedia center gives our audience and our journalists new ways to share stories and solutions. We want to collaborate with the citizens of the Pacific Northwest to address some of the most pressing issues facing us across the region,” says Morgan Holm, vice president of News & Public Affairs at Oregon Public Broadcasting.
The original news reporting and programming produced for EarthFix reaches far beyond the Pacific Northwest. Through a combination of the Internet and other Local Journalism Centers, public media broadcasters all over the country are able to share and re-broadcast reports about environmental issues affecting the northwest and potentially the entire country. In 2011, EarthFix teamed with the PBS NewsHour for a special on the removal the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams on the Elwha River. The special was broadcast throughout the United States.
EarthFix's groundbreaking work has been honored with several awards including the Best New Online Site in the 2011 Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism annual competition, and the 2012 Online News Association's small site in the topical reporting and explanatory reporting categories.
Oregon Public Broadcasting has a long history of providing the region with innovative news and original programming. In 1922, KFDJ-AM was created as part of a physics experiment at Oregon Agricultural College and, from this experiment, OPB's first television station, KOAC-TV, emerged in 1957, followed by KOPB radio in the early 1960s. In 1997, OPB led the way in the digital television transition by installing the state's first digital transmitter. Today Oregon Public Broadcasting produces original programming such as the DuPont Award winning The Silent Invasion: An Oregon Field Guide Special, the Rural Economy Project, and Nanotechnology: The Power of Small.
In addition to radio and television, OPB has a strong Internet presence with OPBnews.org, which highlights local and national news, and OPBmusic, an online music service that not only broadcastings music with an emphasis on artist from the Northwest, but also includes a blog and opportunities for listeners to rate and review all music played.