Liebowitz announces new journalism fellowship Intensive program for environmental journalism catches student interest

Author: Zoey Burrows

President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz announced Tuesday the establishment of the Middlebury College Fellowships in Environmental Journalism. The first of its kind, the program is designed to support intensive, year-long reporting about environmental issues by journalists at the start of their careers.

Liebowitz commended the program, as it "will allow even more exchange between the campus and the broader world on issues of great importance." Nan Jenks-Jay, the College's director of environmental affairs applauded the fellowship because "communication of successes and failures is at the root of environmental progress."

Funded by an anonymous gift of $1.5 million, the program will commence in September under the direction of scholar-in-residence Bill McKibben. Joined by Associate Director Christopher Shaw, former editor of Adirondack Life magazine, McKibben will select ten journalists, two of whom must be Middlebury College students, who will each receive $10,000 for research expenses.

"[The College] asked us to undertake the project because of our background," McKibben explained. "I've been involved in environmental journalism my whole professional life. In fact, at the moment I'm editing the Library of America's anthology of American environmental writing. Chris brings a component I lack - top-notch editing experience, from his stint running the award-winning Adirondack Life magazine."

The program will work with the fellows to report and produce news stories for print, the internet and radio. Graduate fellows will participate in week-long residencies at Middlebury in the fall and at California's Monterey Institute for International Studies in the spring. At these meetings professional journalists will help participants plan their reporting and shape their stories. The program will also assist them in finding outlets for publishing their final products.

The fellows in the program will be selected based on a letter they submit that will outline their project. "We want projects big enough to stretch people, to make them more able journalists," said Shaw. Although they acknowledge that the $10,000 stipend won't be enough for students to live on, it is enough, they hope, to "give [fellows] the time and resources for a powerful project."

Both McKibben and Shaw hope to find "people who are blogging or doing other kinds of web-based reporting, and helping them broaden their work so it will fit into more conventional media." McKibben sees the program both as a way of cultivating young journalists' interests in environmental reporting, as well as developing their expertise at tackling complicated environmental issues. "We want young journalists to take an interest in the biggest story of their time (one that at the moment journalism covers sporadically and too often badly), and we want people who care about the environment - bloggers, say - to develop the sets of skills that reflect the best parts of the journalistic tradition: investigative ability, skepticism towards all sides of an issue, real critical rigor."

The fellowship will be advertised "through journalism schools and programs, and English and Environmental Studies programs. We're also looking for people out of school but still early in their careers, so we'll be in touch with newspapers, broadcast enterprises and professional societies." There is also money in the budget for advertising in national publications, if need be.

The announcement of the fellowship came in the wake of a recent talk by NPR's Steve Curwood, the host of the weekly "Living on Earth" radio show, and a role model for aspiring environmental journalists. Working in journalism since the late 1970's, Curwood expressed eloquent ideas surrounding the increasing importance of images and image-building in an electronic world. "Facts alone can't tell the story," something he said he was slowly coming to accept.

After outlining the chemical and carbon "emergencies" that we are facing today, Curwood concluded with an intriguing economic solution to global warming; namely that just as cars are paid for in loans, and houses by 30-year mortgages, why not the same for expensive alternative energy equipment, such as solar and wind power? Why not use portions of the College's endowment for tax-free bonds, for example?

Luce Professor of Int'l. Environmental Economics Jon Isham said, "Curwood's idea is a twist on the federally-guaranteed loans that help to drive the housing market. This is certainly possible, if it receives enough public and legislative support. The larger question is the cost-effectiveness of renewable technology: costs are coming down, but whether small-scale solar, wind or geothermal is a good investment for a homeowner, even with such a loan structure, is in large part determined by geography."

McKibben said, "It's definitely one of several good ideas floating around. It understands on the one hand the depth of the change we need to make, and on the other, the difficulty of that change; the need to somehow fund a complete and rapid overhaul of our energy system."