Cover the Planet

By David Poulson

Even if you’re suffering Michael Jackson overload, you’ve just got to love this tribute to the pop star that was recently performed at Toolik Lake, Alaska.

It features scientists at an arctic research station dancing in what some claim to be the northernmost production of Thriller. I’m not sure who would contest such a claim. But make sure to check out the costumes topped with netted headgear. They’re well-suited to tundra research on the north slope of the Brooks Range.

And if you doubt the need for the nets, watch for the mosquitoes flicking by the camera lens.

I spent two weeks at Toolik eight or nine years ago on a science writing fellowship. I can easily believe that these researchers welcomed the chance to get down. Miles and months from civilization along with 24 hours of sunlight make for a recipe for spontaneous zaniness.

The year I visited, the crew staged a Fourth of July parade featuring some floats that could be described as R-rated. (Sorry. What happens in Toolik does not necessarily stay in Toolik.)

This year’s production was no hastily put together event.

George Kling, a University of Michigan scientist and longtime Toolik researcher, reports by e-mail: “They practiced for several nights, all together, small groups in the lab (but not while they were filtering, I saw to that…), and it was good fun for them all.”

Journalists in camp this year shot the video and reported the event.

What’s this got to do with the environment? I’ll argue that this is a significant environmental story. But the angle isn’t the science. It’s the fact that scientists, just like the rest of us, like to have fun.

A story about scientists going a little nuts in the midst of an intense research effort can go a long way toward making them more accessible to the public. There is nothing in the journalism rule book requiring that they be portrayed as uptight, white-coated eggheads devoid of humor - unless they are.

A good example is this story about a scientist who was the first to discover a harmful fish invading the Great Lakes. I remember it not because of the discovery, but because the discoverer is also a blues guitarist.

In honor of his discovery, he composed - and often performed - a piece called The Galloping Goby Blues.

My advice: You catch a scientist busting a move, you’ve got a prime hook for capturing attention for a story that might otherwise go unread.

By David Poulson

You’ve got to love a Web site that advances journalism not so much with dazzling technology but by emphasizing basic journalistic values.

That’s pretty much what they do over at Politifact.com. Journalists there truth-test political statements. And in a nod toward the shades of gray that make such a pursuit so challenging, they use a truth-o-meter with a bottom setting wonderfully titled “pants on fire.”

I’m hardly the only fan of this St. Petersburg Times site. It won the 2009 Pulitzer for national reporting for coverage of the 2008 election.

That’s nice. But checking veracity hardly need be limited to national election coverage. That’s a good function for a journalist covering anything, especially the environment. There are certainly enough extreme claims by a variety of people on a raft of environmental issues.

Maybe too often we get caught up in stitching together complex stories. Perhaps we should focus more on parsing issues for the truth, even dribbling bits of it out over time as we learn more.

Reporting what people say about the environment is easy. Checking out what they say requires time. But it certainly isn’t brain surgery. And it’s the kind of thing sure to drive readership, and emphasize the value that professional reporters bring to information-gathering’s wild west.

Now the folks at Politifact give you a headstart. Check out this YouTube primer on how they do it: