As we’ve seen science and environmental reporting decay (both in resources and quality) across most of the mainstream media, the online world has become ever more important in enabling the sharing of reality-based information in these domains. From Climate Progress to Real Climate to Solve Climate to …, online resources have been crucial for anyone seeking honest and robust discussion of climate and energy issues.
While the web contains a growing number of high-quality sites in these domains, this morass can be difficult to navigate — especially for those with limited resources (time and energy) to try to track down good information.
Today, a coalition of journalistic outlets stepped in the breach. Climate Desk represents an effort by
seven of America’s most innovative news organizations—The Atlantic, the Center for Investigative Reporting, Grist, Mother Jones, Slate, Wired, and the new PBS current affairs show Need to Know—have launched the Climate Desk, a collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact—human, environmental, economic, political—of a changing climate.
This group marries web-based, print, and broadcast media outlets who will collaborate on stories and help bring visibility to each others’ work.
Within the seemingly ever-more limited resources to support journalism, Climate Desk might enable more robust climate change reporting due to burden and communication sharing between these outlets.
If things work right, perhaps Climate Desk will win a Pulitzer like another innovative journalism endeavor: Pro Publica.