Michael Kodas — SEJ Board Candidate Statement
As a board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists for the past three years, I have worked to help the organization and its members evolve to better respond to the challenges faced by both the planet where we live and to the journalism landscape in which we work.
In my more than 35 years as a full-time journalist and journalism educator I've been a photographer, picture editor and reporter for a large daily newspaper; led an online newsroom of two dozen reporters focused on the climate; freelanced for large and small publications around the world; written acclaimed, best-selling books; instructed graduate and undergraduate journalism students in multimedia environmental journalism; and run a prestigious fellowship program for mid-career journalists. I'm a "tri-polar" journalist who is "fired up" about climate coverage, having worked in the Arctic, Antarctica and on Mount Everest, and covered the wildfire crisis on every forested continent. That work, and my editing of dozens of other journalists focused on climate change, has left me with the conviction that environmental journalists have a key role to play in the world's increasingly urgent efforts to slow the the accelerating climate crisis in the few years nations have left to avert global catastrophe. SEJ is a critically important resource to help with that essential work.
To help the organization fulfill that essential mission, I've spent the last three years serving as the chair of the Membership Committee, where I spearheaded the creation of the SEJ's Student membership category, which has brought fresh talent into the organization and helped a greater number of student journalists prepare to take on the environment beat. I've helped a number of young journalists get to SEJ's annual conference. For more than ten years I've organized and led field trips, moderated panels and taken on other tasks to help the best conference in journalism succeed. I've endeavored to bring the organization a stronger representation of the broad range of journalistic forms, particularly those involving visuals. Through my outreach, I've brought a number of photojournalists, videographers and graphic artists into the membership.
As a leader in a non-profit newsroom, I've developed a deep understanding and keen interest in new business models for reporting and distributing environmental stories and as a board member, I hope to continue working to help the SEJ evolve to better serve journalists starting up new journalistic endeavors or working in new models.
Most importantly, if chosen to serve another term on the board, I would continue my efforts to help the organization move with urgency in its mission to support the most prolific, expansive, substantive and impactful work that environmental journalists can produce.
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