Environmental Journalism and Climate Change

General intro

The importance of covering the climate crisis and the impact of human activity on the planet is no longer a matter of debate in most newsrooms. Given the complexity and wide range effects of such issues on all walks of life (environment, public health, food security, economy, migrations, wars and regional conflicts), the real challenge is to be prepared to report accurately and efficiently on them for the years and decades to come.

Learning objectives

This training program is entirely adaptable to your needs. It can cover all the aspects of a thorough work to collect, sort, verify, analyze, and communicate information related to the environment and sustainable development: finding story ideas, preliminary research on the Internet, digital security and privacy issues, working in the field, interviewing techniques, producing and using powerful visuals and writing techniques.

Targeted skills

Strengthen the capacity of newsrooms to deal with the complexity of climate change and environmental issues.
Implement an effective methodology to cover these issues through in-depth work (on the Internet and in the field).
Know how to communicate effectively on environmental issues by accurately reporting on problems and potential solutions for one’s audience.

Training outline

1 – Introduction

Investigative journalism, the environment and climate change
Overview of environmental investigative initiatives
Investigative versus day-to-day journalism
- Time & Money: rare commodities in journalis
- Collaboration: the vital importance of collaborating in the Big Data era; examples of collaborative and cross-border journalism; crowdsourcing

2 – Zooming in on investigation ideas

The environment and climate change: a wealth of investigation ideas
- Then environment & health: the impact of the health crisis, air, water & plastic pollution.
- Climate change: megafires, floods, droughts, desertification, impact on agriculture, climate refugees, etc.
- Man’s imprint on the planet: air/land/sea/plastic pollution, deforestation, overfishing, hydro dams, conflicts, humanitarian crisis & refugees.
Disinformation, greenwashing and climate change
Investigation topics: how/where to find them
- How/where to find ideas (in the field & online)
- What is worth investing time in (something new, with ambitious yet realistic goals, an interesting/important topic for your audience, with a well-defined/original angle, presenting important/pressing challenges, and possible solutions)
Pitching your investigation idea

3 – Preparing and organizing your work

Preparing and organizing one’s investigation
The Internet history is fragile : the importance of recording, saving, and keeping track of all essential elements (interviews, contact details and titles, datasets, videos, tweets, etc.)
Online tools and techniques to preserve investigation results locally and/or in the cloud (web pages, tweets, Facebook posts, streaming video, etc.)
The online investigator’s toolbox (browsers & settings, essential plugins, apps & software)

4 – Security and privacy

Protecting your sources
Digital security and privacy
- Understanding digital threats, risks, and harms
  - Disinformation & online harassment (stalking/attacks on one’s reputation)
  - Internet spying on journalists
  - Hacking (phishing, password, VPN, etc.) and leaks
  - Breach of confidentiality, source protection
- Tools and techniques to protect against digital threats
  - Awareness and training
  - Browser and plugin selection and settings
  - Anti-virus solutions
  - Encrypted emails
  - Firewalls & VPNs
  - Password management

5 – Investigating on the Internet

Open Source Investigative Techniques: a revolution in the making
- The major actors
- Case studies in the field of climate change & the environment
Hacking Google: advanced searching techniques
Fact-checking social networks (Facebook and Twitter)
Fact-checking visuals
- Fact-checking visuals with reverse image search
- Geolocating with metadata and other techniques
- Dating images
- Fact-checking videos
Fact-checking websites
Automated Internet monitoring with specialized tools & techniques
- Google alerts & Change detection and notification services
- Twitter Lists and TweetDeck
- Facebook monitoring techniques
- Monitoring websites with RSS feeds
Investigating with satellite imagery
- A digital revolution to investigate environmental issues and climate change
- Overview of potential uses in journalism to monitor…
  - environmental changes (desertification, agricultural productivity);
  - climate change & natural disasters (megafires, droughts, floods, etc.);
  - Man’s imprint on the planet (pollution, migrations & conflicts, illegal fishing and deforestation, overconsumption, population growth).
- Open source tools mauling use of satellite imagery/data
Investigating with satellite imagery – tools and techniques
- Google Earth Pro
  - Intro: the software interface
  - Key concepts: coordinates, spatial and temporal resolution
  - Exploring environmental changes with historic imagery
  - Searching for geographical data (finding and importing geolocated files into GE)
- Seeing the invisible with spectral images
  - Introduction to the EO Browser
  - Exercise: using infrared images to highlight wildfires

6 – Working in the field

Safety, ethics and access to information
- Undercover work, hidden cameras & equipment (what is justifiable? what is information ‘vital’ to the public? when have traditional open methods been exhausted?), trespassing, misrepresentation & withholding of information, sources and whistleblower protection,
- Freedom of Information (FOI) laws and regulations
- How to make an access to information request
Interviewing techniques
- Preparation
- How to land an interview
- When and where to do the interview
- The interviewer’s ethics and state of mind
- How to conduct the interview
- How to end the interview

7 – Illustrating your work

Journalism in the age of the image
Climate visual principles (illustrative versus impactful, problems versus solutions)
Illustrating your work with freely available visuals
Using existing imagery found on the Internet
- Copyright issues
- UGC, verification & authorization to reproduce
Producing animated Gifs and videos
- Creating animated GIFs (for visualizing the impact of climate change) with Google Earth & Gif maker, Google Earth Engine’s Timelapse, EO Browser, etc.
- Creating videos with Google Earth
- Integrating multimedia elements: maps, videos, tweets, widgets & iframes (tables & stats)
Investing in a video version of your investigation for maximizing the impact of your work on the web and social networks

8 – Writing for people and for… machines

Strategies for effectively writing/talking about climate change
Writing for machines: best techniques for search engine optimization
Marketing techniques & the temptation of clickbait journalism
Structuring your presentation

Environmental Journalism and Climate Change

General intro

Learning objectives

Targeted skills

Training outline

Other trainings

Examples of courses

Advanced Internet Search Techniques

Mass Surveillance, Digital Security and Privacy

Cognitive Biases & Conspiracy Theories

Big Data & Data Journalism

Fake News: Living in the Post-Truth Era

Web & Social Media Monitoring Tools and Techniques

Fact-checking visuals – an introduction

Social Networks : Fact-checking and Monitoring Techniques

Investigative Journalism with Satellite Images

Information Warfare & Computational Propaganda