ENVS 195: Environmental Journalism
Spring 2016
Tuesdays 4:35-7:35
Instructor:
Joshua Brown
Work:
University of Vermont
Senior Writer for Science and Environment
University Communications
86 South Williams Street
Burlington, VT 05401
Phone: 656-3039
Email: joshua.e.brown@uvm.edu
Home:
15 Catherine Street
Burlington, VT 05401
Phone: 864-3329 (feel free to call me at home; if my kids are making a ruckus, please speak more
loudly.)
Office Hours: by appointment
Some Opening Thoughts:
"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less
taste we shall have for destruction."
—Rachel Carson, 1954
“Information that reveals comes from pounding the pavement.”
—Donald Murray, veteran journalist
“Environmental stories don’t break, they ooze.”
—Frank Allen, Ex-Wall Street Journal writer
“A journalist is first and foremost a questioner. We ask. That’s the most important thing we do.”
—Yasemin Congar, co-founder of Taraf, a crusading Turkish newspaper.
Course description:
Covering the “environment beat” requires that journalists have the ability to report on complex and
interwoven subjects, from land use policy to laboratory discoveries; energy technologies to natural history;
waste management to wilderness travel.
This course will give students an introduction to finding and tackling these challenging stories. The
emphasis of the class is on developing an informed and nuanced approach to reporting and writing
environmental stories suitable for newspaper, magazine, and radio formats.
Through this course, you’ll learn about current and emerging environmental topics—both locally and
nationally—while you gain hands-on experience in the basics of journalism: deciding what to write about,
gathering news, conducting research, investigating, and interviewing.
No background in journalism is needed, but you should be a conscientious, inquisitive, determined writer
with strong basic writing skills.
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Note well: this is a writing course. The bulk of the work and the focus is on developing the skills unique to
the environmental journalist; readings, and discussions are all in aid of this goal and secondary too it.
Working in teams and alone, you’ll discover, write, and edit stories. Over the semester, you will create and
refine six pieces of journalistic writing. The content and format of these will be determined partly by
assignments, partly by your interests, and in collaborative discussion with me.
Along the way, we’ll examine what it’s like to be an environmental journalist. How does the trade work?
How does environmental coverage fit into the multiple mandates of newspapers and general interest
magazines? What are the roles and purviews of the environmental “niche” magazines? How is social media
reframing journalism and
You’ll read a few seminal works of historical environmental journalism, and sections of several textbooks.
You’ll also spend some time reading the science sections of some newspapers, peruse some environmental
magazines—and talk about them—both for their content and what they can teach about the process and
craft of writing and the profession of journalism.
We’ll also turn one eye toward putting environmental journalism into historical context, tracing how the
discipline’s roots in American nature writing; how the evolution of the media has influenced the practice of
writing about the environment; and what the future of environmental journalism might look like.
Mostly though, we’ll try to understand the many steps in creating a finished piece of journalistic writing.
This style of writing is markedly different from most academic writing and you’ll learn what makes for
effective journalistic copy--writing that people are paying to read! (In striking contrast to most student
writing, where a professional, i.e., the professor, is getting paid to read it.)
Readings
Readings will drawn from several books including:
• Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide, edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call
(Harvard/Plume 2007)
• Green Ink: An Introduction to Environmental Journalism, Michael Frome (Utah, 1998)
• A Field Guide for Science Writers, Deborah Blum, Mary Knudson, Robin Marantz Henig (Oxford, 2004)
• Various handouts and online articles and material
• Your own writings
Most of the readings will be articles from newspapers and magazines.
All will be available online at our class website or as handouts in class.
You are responsible for bringing all readings and other necessary materials to class, either as printouts
(recommended) or online via laptop (more cumbersome in my opinion, but then again I’m over 40!)
Class Website
www.uvm.edu/~jbrown7/envjournalism/
Key Background Questions
 What is environmentalism?
 What is journalism?
 Is environmental journalism a form of activism?
 What is the cultural role of the environmental journalist?
 What does the quickly shifting landscape of media mean for environmental journalism?
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Some skills of the craft we’ll explore:
 Close observation
 Finding a hot question
 Not believing your own initial opinion
 Finding good sources
 The right people to interview and the right questions to ask
 Mixing reporting, research and original thought
 Thinking like an editor; thinking like a reader
 Matching your writing to the publication
 Revision that works
 Approaches to publication
 Freelancing and commercial writing
Possible focus areas and topics for readings during the semester:
 Climate change
 Endangered species and the extinction crisis
 Geoengineering, assisted migration and the politics of conservation
 Localvores and their critics
 The End of the World? Cassandras and Pollyannas and the fight for ultimate meaning
Where I am coming from:
I make my living as a writer and editor. Though I am in love with words, my first commitment is to
conservation—to the protection of nature and wild places and creatures, to human stewardship and
enjoyment of natural resources. For me, writing is a strong tool to achieve this aim. I look to nature for
sources of renewal and use my writing as a stay against apathy and eco-despair. What I have to offer you as
the instructor in this journalism course will be shaped by these priorities.
I now work as the senior writer for science and environment at UVM, producing articles for the campus
magazine, Vermont Quarterly, and a weekly on-line publication, UVM Today.
For five years, I worked as senior editor and staff writer for Wild Earth, a national conservation journal that
combined science reporting, literary nature writing, poetry, and activist voices. In my job, I employed a
broad range of journalistic skills: developing issue themes, writing science features, interviewing scientists,
writing unsigned “service pieces” and ad copy, and selecting poetry. I also selected and edited articles from
academic and professional writers.
For several years, I worked as a freelance writer for the Boston Globe, Conservation, Middlebury
Magazine, Vermont Quarterly, and the Burlington Free Press.
I am a journalist, not a student of journalism theory. I understand magazine production and newspaper
writing from the inside, and have wrestled with the questions and deadlines and pressures that are the
waters working writers must swim. I am committed to helping you become a better writer.
An approach to writing:
The best way to become a better writer is to write. A good way to start writing—and to keep going—is to
write about something that you find interesting. However, many of us carry a large psychological billboard
glued to our foreheads that reads: “Writing Is Punishment.” Right? We have been well-trained to not mix
our real interests with whatever is happening in some assignment. Can we recover the sense of writing as a
way toward what we care about, toward what we really want to do or understand?
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On the other hand—and compounding your problems—is the reality that much journalism relies heavily on
factual reporting (what happened, not what you feel), attribution (he said or she said, not what you say),
and a minimum of emotional interpretation.
Do not despair. We are a storytelling species and writing understood as an extension of that innate quality
can become vital and pleasurable—even in a newspaper article. If you are writing about something in
which you’re interested it becomes possible to put this billboard down and look around in the world
through our writing—to focus our attentions on the wonders and realities of the universe.
Don’t misunderstand me: this is not easy—and, as you already know, writing is not easy either—but it is
well worth it, since writing is not just a currency of much communication, it becomes a way to understand
what we think and where we are.
Overall structure of the course
We will start with exercises that help you to observe closely, ask effective questions, and learn where and
how to find information. We’ll then work on various pieces of more formal journalistic writing.
A likely a sequence of pieces is: a nature essay, a basic news article, a profile, a science story, a feature
article, and, finally, a radio essay.
We’ll also discuss how publishable various pieces might be, in what types of publications, and have some
practice with the roles and decision-making of an editorial team.
Course Objectives
In the context of these broad goals, the specific objectives of this course are:
1. To teach students about journalism as a writing activity, as a profession, and as a social force.
2. To develop an awareness of the history and changing currents of environmental journalism and
conservation politics as revealed in three popular media (newspapers, magazines, radio).
3. To develop writing skills, especially with respect to accuracy of information and rigor in basic English.
4. To develop your ability to research and make inquiries in new, more complex and more resourceful
ways.
5. To encourage you to take a sharper and more alert scrutiny of the world around you.
6. To encourage you to address strangers, institutions, and those in power intelligently and without fear.
7. To learn the importance of deadlines.
8. To foster critical thinking by having you sort through complex and even contradictory information from
a variety of sources of varying trustworthiness.
9. To foster intelligent and constructive discussion about environmental issues and their presentation in the
media.
Student Learning Outcomes
At the end of the semester, students will show their ability to:
1. Formulate story ideas about environmental news and topics
2. Develop sources.
3. Observe their surroundings accurately and take notes.
4. Conduct interviews with a variety of people.
5. Assemble information from a variety of sources.
6. Present a cogent body of information in writing suitable for publication in a newspaper or magazine.
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7. Meet journalistic standards of fairness and accuracy while striving for the kind of passionate engagement
that is a hallmark of environmental journalism.
8. Edit their peers’ work and their own.
9. Meet deadlines.
10. Execute flawless basic written English.
11. Examine and discuss the structure and merits of published pieces of environmental journalism.
In class
Most classes will include a mixture of the following: discussion of recent articles that I select and that you
gather from newspapers and magazines; small group review of drafts; discussion of assigned readings;
reading aloud from drafts and journal assignments; individual writing time; discussion of topics in the
profession of journalism; and other directions as they spring up.
Long-term Investigation
As the centerpiece assignment for the course, each student will write--and then rewrite--a 2000-word
magazine-style feature article. This long-term investigation will develop over the whole semester. The
basic goal is to find something that:
1. is going to interest you—sustain you—over the rest of the semester. Find something you care
about, but are not a partisan to already (i.e., not something you have already staked a side in,
unless you are genuinely prepared to switch sides.)
2. That can be framed around a specific, relevant question.
3. Has broad public interest about an environmental question or issue.
4. Contains an element of controversy, mystery, scientific uncertainty or public policy debate.
5. That will allow one or more field trips to explore your question.
Crash Test Geniuses
About eight times over the semester, 3-4 students will need to have their major assignments in partial
completion a week early. They will come to class with a one-page handout that includes a question or two
about the current assignment, a tip or technique they would to share, and a paragraph or sample of their
work that they’d to share and discuss. These are the much-lauded (and rarely maligned) Crash Test
Geniuses! This allows us, together, to draw on work in progress for class discussion to illustrate aspects of
the craft, good, bad and beautiful.
Other Presentations
As the semester develops, small groups or the whole class, will be asked to make additional presentations
about reporting techniques, favorite publications, websites worth watching, blogs that matter and the like.
This is an evolving portion of the class that varies each year.
Evaluation and Grading
You will be evaluated based on your attendance, discussion, in-class writing, in-class presentations and
workshops--and, mostly, your writing projects.
Attendance
Attendance at all classes is mandatory, since this class is largely driven by meeting together and much of
the value of it comes from creating a shared understanding about writing and journalism. A missed class,
unless you have talked with me in advance, may lower your final grade for the course. Two unexcused
absences may result in a failing grade for the course.
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Academic Integrity
Please review the University of Vermont’s code of standards on academic integrity – which can be found at
http://www.uvm.edu/cses.
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