Innovation Journalism Conference: Update on Environmental Reporting Sessions

I attended the 7th Innovation Journalism conference at Stanford today and learned about environmental journalism from two unique points of view in breakout sessions during the conference proceedings.

Quest - KQED's Science Journalism Programming

Producer: KQED
Budget: $2.5 million annual budget
Funding: Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, National Science Foundation

Output:
Radio: 50 (weekly) radio shows
Television: 20 half hours television programs (2 long and 1 short story)
Online: web site
Education: Classroom teacher guides
Distribution: KQED, online and syndicates content to partner and mainstream media providers (free)

Paul Rogers, the half time managing editor of Quest (he works half time as an environmental reporter for San Jose Mercury News the rest of the time), led a breakout session on the Quest production effort. It has a collaborative, open source approach to creating content internally- for instance, using wikis for notes used by all the staff - collaborative decision making in deciding which stories to cover, and cross utilizing audio from TV for radio programming, for example.

Quest has built an enviable track record of success, winning a number of Emmys and has received additional funding from the National Science Foundation to extend its success to PBS stations in other markets including Seattle, Philadelphia and Tampa. Rogers talked about how other locations can replicate its success with resources as low as $100,000 or less.

Greentech Media A Venture-Funded Media Startup

Producer: Greentech Media
Budget: unknown
Funding: venture capital

Online: web site
Conferences: for profit conferences
Research Group: for pay research reports

Michael Kanellos of Greentech Media provided insight into a daily web journalism site that publishes information on all forms of cleantech and greentech developments.

I'll provide more detail on this venture soon.

The Power of the Visual

A remarkable new graphical style is emerging from the internet soup - visually scribed videos. Before you say what's that, have a quick look and you'll see how it's marrying text and graphics to talking.



This is a fabulous stylistic technique that environmentalists could use to great effect.

The creators of these videos is Cognitive Media in the UK.

Drawn to Yellowstone

Last summer I visited Yellowstone for the first time and was struck by the story of how the art made of the place sold Congress on making it into a national park - the first national park, in fact. I took lots of photos of the art intending to begin a class series on environmentalists and visual media with this story.

Now a new PBS documentary (made by local filmmakers in Wyoming) chronicles the tale in its full glory. See the film's web site for details: Drawn to Yellowstone. Check out the video clips on the site - it looks quite good. Peter Coyote narrates.