Journalism & Media

For journalists looking to understand the condition of U.S. rangeland, forests or urban pavement, a high-quality government dataset collected via Landsat can help. And for data geeks who want to go a step further and illuminate human impacts on the environment, mapping overlays on the Landsat data can do the trick. Find out more in the new Reporter’s Toolbox.

Reporters covering floods, fires and other weather-driven disasters sometimes hesitate to link these extreme events to climate change. But TV meteorologists increasingly see an opportunity — and a responsibility — to help local audiences better understand the connections. Their unique relationship with viewers makes it easier to get past partisan divisions, while innovative tools are providing new ways to communicate information.

Society of Environmental Journalists president Luke Runyon (pictured, left) shares information on a couple of important upcoming transitions for SEJ. One is an announcement from our current executive director, Meaghan Parker, and our plans to search for SEJ’s next executive director; another is a change in organizational structure.

Some areas of the United States are hot and getting hotter, thanks to climate change and now the coming El Niño. But some areas have little history with extreme temperatures — and those places are among the ones to watch this summer for local and regional reporting. Plus, who are the most vulnerable in your community when it comes to heat waves?