Reposted: Join the 70+ 112+ supporters who want better media coverage of climate.
Frustrated by the lack of interest in climate coverage by mainstream media, 15 young journalists on 4 continents want to bring a new collaborative approach to climate change journalism. This is a voluntary effort to both increase and improve reporting called the Climate News Mosaic (CNM).
They need your help for their first collaborative project that will connect what's happening at the UN climate conference (COP) in Warsaw this November with climate impacts/perspectives on the ground from their home countries.
Here's how it will work:
* 2 or 3 journalists will go to the COP in Warsaw to report and co-ordinate. The rest will be back home doing local coverage on climate. Everyone contributes and shares interviews, links to reports, sources, A/V and so on.
* Members (mainly freelancers) do articles, audio and video for their own outlets. Some 25-30 original stories in at least 4 languages will be made available for use in whole or in part by any media outlet anywhere in the world.
* A live blog placed on a number non-profit news sites like IPS, Earth Journalism Network , and others will bring the public a wealth of current info on what is happening at the Warsaw COP but also from other countries. (i.e. a short video from Warsaw, a photo from a rally in San Francisco, a soundbite from a press conference in Nairobi, a quote from an interview with an Italian scholar.)
Learn more about CNM participants on this global map with short bios.
I'm sort of the mentor having used crowd-sourced funding to support my science and climate journalism the past 4 years. That support kept me going and in 2012 I was a co-winner of the Prince Albert/United Nations Global Prize for media coverage of climate change.
For-profit media owners are simply not interested in good science and environment reporting. Coverage of climate change has been in sharp decline since the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009. Even the New York Times closed its environment desk this year. It's not that there isn't a lot to report on. Quite the opposite.
Here's how you can help:
Please spread the word about this project. We need to raise $6000 for travel, accomodation and other costs to do the Warsaw COP reporting. Please click on Indiegogo to contribute what you can. (There are 'perks' for contributors including a Google Hangout.)
This is a fresh new idea: Independent journalists in different countries working together to provide all of us with the news and information on the most important issue of our time.
Posted by Stephen Leahy on Wednesday, 30 October, 2013
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