Cover the Planet

By David Poulson

NASA has a nice piece here on communicating climate change.

It embodies the principals of KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. That’s a nice acronym as a reminder of the need for clean writing that communicates clearly.

But it has always troubled me as some writers seem to think the need for simplicity implies that readers are, well, stupid.

Understanding an issue is not necessarily a measure of intelligence. It may be a measure of background, experience, time. Readers may be incredibly smart - they just haven’t had the opportunity, time or interest that you and your sources have had to dig into the issue you’re writing about.

It’s unfair to call them - well, most of them - stupid. If they don’t understand, perhaps it is the writer that is, er, less than intelligent. Or at least less than skilled. Or patient.

I do like the call for a 30-second elevator speech for communicating climate change. The advice in the NASA piece is to be concise, clear, jargon-free. Include a scientific point or two, perhaps all wrapped up in a metaphor.

That’s pretty good advice for a nut graph. It could be the kind of graph you keep in the “word depot” ready to get you out of a tight explanatory corner. If you find one that works for you, there’s no reason you can’t trot it out for more than one story. Some tools improve with use.

Bear in mind that this NASA piece cites a study indicating that only 7 percent of the population is completely dismissive of global warming. You’ll have a tough time reaching them regardless of rhetorical device.

That still leaves a healthy chunk of readers for you to serve.

The Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media has published four reaction pieces to the critique of climate change reporting that I referenced in the previous post:

• Bill Allen, an assistant professor of science journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia, sees the analysis as a call to reporters, publishers, editors and shareholders that Joseph Pulitzer would be quick to heed.
• Mark Neuzil, who teaches at the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of St. Thomas, agrees with the conclusions but questions some methodology.
• Tom Yulsman, co-director of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, references a wonderful quote: “It is no longer enough to report the fact truthfully. It is now necessary to report the truth about the fact.”
• And me, who in addition to my earlier March Madness post, says the analysis points to the need for a race-to-the-moon kind of commitment to the research and development of new journalism institutions.

Eric Pooley, who wrote the piece while at the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, reacts to the comments. The Yale Forum also has a link to his original analysis.

By David Poulson

Researchers are using climate change to study how news Web sites can use Facebook to reach young people.

Hot Dish is a Facebook application just launched by Jeff Reifman, founder of the news aggregator NewsCloud. It features environmental news delivered by Grist.org.

TechFlash reports that the experiment targets 16- to 25-year-olds with incentives to encourage them to interact with the site. Readers in that coveted demographic earn points for activities like posting stories, volunteering for an Earth Day activity, using energy-efficient lights.

The grand prize is an Arctic expedition for two.

Reifman says the effort will be studied by University of Minnesota researchers looking for ways to use social networks to engage young people in current events. The software that results from this experiment will be released as open source.

This sounds a lot more like social activism than journalism. But maybe the research leads us deeper into the frontier of new media. It apparently has journalistic implications as it is funded with a $249,000 grant from the John S. And James L. Knight Foundation, the nation’s leading supporter of journalism research, education and outreach.

Knight officials note that the proportion of young people who receive no news has increased from 25 to 34 percent since 1998.

“It’s important that we find new ways to reverse these trends by engaging young people where they increasingly spend time – online in social networks,” said Gary Kebbel, Knight Foundation journalism program director.

I’m not disparaging the effort. Heaven knows we need frontier-busting journalism experiments. And I’m intrigued because of the environmental news angle and the use of social media - something that I find increasingly fascinating.

But I’ll admit that I remain a bit puzzled about where this might be going. That’s not a bad thing - there are worse things nowadays then throwing stuff against the journalistic wall to see what sticks.

But I sure am interested to hear what you think. Check out Hot Dish and let me know.

By David Poulson

You’ve got to get customers through the door before you can sell them any merchandise.

That’s even true with online sales - it’s just that the door is virtual rather than real. That’s why I hit on ledes in the previous post and likely will return to them. You want me to read one of those messy complicated environmental stories? You better be a good salesperson right off the bat.

But let’s take a look at the other end of the story. Too often we let our stories simply peter out. That’s a consequence of inverted pyramid writing - a style with which I have no particular quarrel. It’s a style that often serves the fast reads required in the Web world.

And yet, what a great place to reward the reader who has stuck with you. A stinger of an ending reverberates backwards through the story, driving home key points. It is a significant place for emphasis.

Check this ending out: “The plural of anecdote is not data.”

It’s on the end of a story appearing Wednesday in Slate that picks apart a Washington Post story on ecomigration. It’s a great piece of environmental journalism criticism. I recommend it both for the content and for the story structure.

Once you get the context for that ending, you can appreciate how sweet it is.

If the lede is where you get the customers in the door, the end is where you close the deal. The transaction has been successful because they’ve stuck with you.

But when you strive for this effect, don’t forget that part about getting them into the front door.

By the way, Jack Shafer, who wrote this piece, did a nice job on that end of things as well: “When hunting bogus trend stories, the experienced tracker rarely needs to look beyond Page One to bag his prey.”

By David Poulson

Two students here at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism got a resume-builder of sorts this week when their work appeared in Andrew Revkin’s Dot Earth blog.

Revkin, a reporter for the New York Times, reported that former Vice President Al Gore removed a misleading slide from his climate change road show. He linked his post to a video of Gore’s presentation – complete with the offending slide.

That video was taken by MSU EJ students Andy Balaskovitz and Andy McGlashen last week at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. They posted it, helpfully divided into several small clips, to YouTube in preparation for publication in an MSU blog they created to cover the conference.
So how did Revkin end up with it?
“I went to YouTube because I couldn’t get my Macbook to play the video files at the aaas.org site,” Revkin wrote in an e-mail. “And, better yet, the short clip made it easier for viewers to home in on the suspect comment!”
For driving traffic, you can’t beat the New York Times. Revkin’s mention boosted the circulation of the students’ efforts significantly. Within 24 hours the video received more than 2,200 views.
The take-home message here isn’t that journalists should post to YouTube on the off-chance they’ll show up in a New York Times blog.  Instead, think of all that stuff on YouTube that might help illustrate your own story.
Do a quick search of the site before you hit the send button.  Or check it out before you start writing – what you find may just prompt a great story angle.

By David Poulson

Jeff Kart has this nice piece in the Bay City (Mich.) Times today on the future of a proposed coal-fired power plant in the heart of his readership.

Consumers Power Co. makes the case that this plant is unusually well-suited for carbon capture and sequestration technology. The region already has underground cavities that might be used to store captured carbon.

Kart does a good job of explaining the issue. But he helps the reader by embedding into the online version of the story this U.S. Department of Energy YouTube video that describes the technology and the challenges:

Should you rely on government video to help you explain your story?

Of course. You wouldn’t hesitate to interview a government official for a similar explanation. Take advantage of all the resources you can - and as efficiently as you can.

A commitment to multi-media reporting doesn’t mean you have to do it all yourself. Government, non-profit agencies and other organizations have resources that can engage readers. They may not be perfect - in this case I’d argue the carbon video is much too long.

But seek out those sources. Nowadays that really is part of your job as a journalist. Besides, you save yourself a pile of production work if you can find something to illustrate your story that someone else has done.

Just be transparent about where you got the video - like you’d do with any information. And if the presentation is biased, point that out. Or at least report alternative valid viewpoints. It’s still journalism.