By Anna Barnes
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of stories coming out of a recent meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Philadelphia.
A whistleblower speaking at a recent Society of Environmental Journalists conference wore a hat that said “personal capacity” to make sure those in the room would not link his/her statements to any agency and that he/she would remain anonymous.
What do you do when an employee comes forward, exposing their company for wrongdoing?
Environmental journalists discussed how to handle that situation at a recent Society of Environmental Journalist Conference in Philadelphia.
Sharon Lerner, a reporter for ProPublica, used a whistleblower to expose the Environmental Protection Agency for corrupt work practices and safety problems when assessing chemicals.
They had to figure out how to tell the story without endangering the careers of her sources, said Lerner, who led a panel on working with whistleblowers.
Photo credit: Donte Smith
One of the highlights of the workshop was the sessions focused on the development and production of podcasts. Fellows explored narrative structures and techniques for creating compelling stories. According to Dr. Alonso Favela, a SCIP fellow and Assistant Professor of Plant-Microbe Interactions in the School of Plant Sciences at the University of Arizona, the podcast is an attractive medium for society and allows for engagement with different perspectives. “The podcast has given me the opportunity to talk to people in my state and has been a chance to get a different opinion on my research topic from other perspectives,” he said.
Dr. Mallika Nocco, also a SCIP fellow, Assistant Professor, and Extension Specialist in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, said, “We’re using podcasts as the example, but I think that you can extend it to a variety of modalities that are science communication products that we could use.” The podcasts are also part of another SCIP objective, which is to develop a novel peer-review process aimed at expanding what counts as academic scholarship.
In addition to the podcasts, fellows practiced interviewing techniques and explored strategies for framing and presenting their research topics, aiming to engage diverse audiences and promote positive societal change. This has also contributed to transforming their own views on science communication. “I’ve always thought that science communication meant we were writing publications for a scientific audience. SCIP has sort of shifted my framing a little bit to start thinking about how do we communicate our sciences back to communities that could use them? How do we communicate them to broader audiences outside of academia? So that skill, in itself, has been amazing,” said Dr. Khalid Osman, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University.
