Media On the Move: New Projects, Jobs and Awards for SEJ Members

By JUDY FAHYS

Some SEJ members are branching out with new projects. Others are stepping up to accept accolades for their environmental journalism.

William Souder has a new book deal for Days of the World, Years of the World: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson that will explore the life and work of the groundbreaking author who helped transform the conservation ethic into the environmental movement. The publisher is Harmony, which has slated publication for 2012, the 50-year anniversary of Silent Spring. Souder's most recent book, Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America, was a Pulitzer finalist in 2005.

Jim O'Neill is the Bergen (NJ) Record's new environmental reporter, now covering what he sees as the big story of the next decade. A 20-year veteran reporter, he is returning to the fold after a year's hiatus as director of public affairs at Columbia Law School. O'Neill also has worked at the Providence Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, Dallas Morning News and Bloomberg News.

Long time SEJ member Terri C. Hansen won the Native American Journalists Association 2008 Media Award, Best Environmental Story in a Daily/Weekly, for her piece, "Northwest Coastal Nations at Risk of Climate Change Disruptions," that ran in Indian Country Today. Encouraged by SEJ stalwart Christy George, she wrote about the impacts of climate change on tribal nations. She also won NAJA's 2008 Media Award for Best News Story in a Monthly/Bimonthly for her story, "Tribal Victory," in High Country News.

And Craig Saunders reports that he has started teaching in the editing program at George Brown College in Toronto. Freelance writer and engineer Diane McDilda has started a new part-time position in the University of Florida Office of Sustainability. She is the author of The Everything Green Living Book and 365 Ways to Live Green.

Meanwhile, the Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media , edited by SEJ honorary member and co-founder Bud Ward, has won a grant from the McCormick Foundation to train Midwest broadcast meteorologists on covering climate change science.

Photographer Roger Archibald, SEJournal's photo editor, presented a paper, "The Camera As Prosthesis," at the Second Global Conference on Visual Literacies: Exploring Critical Issues, at Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom last summer. To learn more about his work, see the web page: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ci/vl/vl2/s1.html.

Dick Russell was part of a web-based documentary film, "The Warning," based on interviews with authors Robert Kennedy Jr., Naomi Klein, Joe Conason, Naomi Wolf and Chris Hedges, about what they see as the frightening direction American democracy has been taking. The other is a new book, On the Trail of the JFK Assassins, to be published in early November.

Meanwhile, Debra Atlas reports she's added a newspaper to carry her weekly articles on innovative, environment-related consumer products. "I'm now syndicated!" she says.

The National Academies of Science in September announced the recipients of its 2008 Communication Awards, including Bob Marshall, Mark Schleifstein, Dan Swenson, and Ted Jackson of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans for "Last Chance: The Fight to Save a Disappearing Coast," which was published in March 2007. Judges said "Last Chance" was "an outstanding newspaper series that combines superb storytelling with the latest science in its call to action to save Louisiana's wetlands." The winners were to be honored during a ceremony on Nov. 13 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, Calif.

And, finally, Catherine V. Schmitt has moved up from part-time science writer to full-time communications coordinator with Maine Sea Grant at the University of Maine in Orono.

Judy Fahys is environment reporter at The Salt Lake Tribune. Contact her with your news of your latest award, book project or job change at fahys@sltrib.com.