Hi SEJ,
I’ve cared deeply for the environment for as long as I can remember. My earliest photos show a curious kid knee-deep in water searching for tadpoles or admiring wildflowers on a muddy mountainside. Now that same kid (at heart) turned a passion for the outdoors and a curiosity about everything into a career.
I joined NPR’s 1A show in 2017 in a pivot away from corporate newspapers and now I’m the team’s special projects editor. We don’t have beats on 1A, which has helped me worm environmental and climate coverage into a wide array of topics.
After years of following SEJ’s work, I finally took the plunge into membership last January. I wanted to connect with my peers doing some of the best environmental journalism around and boy, did you all deliver! Boise was my first SEJ conference and not only did meeting so many of you in person inspire new ideas for 1A, but you energized me, too. Connecting with people deep in environmental work in vastly different ways highlighted what I’d been missing without this community. I want to join the board and help foster connections to SEJ for people who don’t yet realize the value of this organization.
With hundreds of veteran journalists in the ranks, I want to see SEJ become a stronger mentorship organization for student and early-career reporters. There are too many barriers to entering journalism these days. That’s particularly true for reporters the industry needs the most including low-income and LGBTQ+ people, and people of color. I think it’s the responsibility of organizations like SEJ to eliminate as many hurdles as possible. SEJ’s work with The Uproot Project is an excellent start and as a board member, I’d strive to increase access to resources, training and mentorship for underrepresented journalists.
Leading 1A grant-funded collaborations with nine public radio stations of varying sizes and resources has provided insight into how other newsrooms work and what they need most to succeed. I see many benefits of newsrooms collaborating across projects and I want to help SEJ become a key resource for cross-newsroom and cross-platform connections. There are many more environment and climate stories that need telling and I am a firm believer in the power of collaboration to create stronger coverage across every medium.
Working for a non-profit also introduced me to a world of fundraising and budgeting I find surprisingly delightful. I’ve shepherded reporting grants through the application process and been that annoying voice on your radio interrupting All Things Considered to tell you that your $1 dollar gift really matters (because it does!). I would bring that non-profit fundraising ethos and energy to SEJ to ensure it can be a robust resource with a sustainable future.
SEJ has helped me tremendously in my short time as a member and I’d be honored to join the board and help others benefit from this organization in the same way I have.
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