Climate Change Training

Fifteen regional broadcast meteorologists attended Climate Change Science for Broadcast Meteorologists and Weathercasters, a conference at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, May 14-15, 2010. Hosted by the Yale Project on Climate Change (YPCC), a center that has an established online forum that fosters scientists and journalists to discuss climate change, the full-day workshop set out to equip veteran broadcast meteorologists with the latest scientific information regarding climate change.

YPCC has identified the powerful opportunity meteorologists have to inform the public of climate science. Yet many meteorologists lack formal scientific training, which prevents them from discussing important science issues such as climate change. As broadcast journalists, these meteorologists should serve the purpose of delivering information to their audience, looking clearly at the facts around climate change from a scientific point of view.

The workshop included a faculty consisting of world-class climate scientists and TV meteorologists with extensive first-hand experience in studying and communicating on climate change science. It gave the conference participants a head-full of information exploring climate science so that the next time a meteorologist has viewers asking about it, they can give an educated answer.

This is the second workshop the McCormick Foundation has funded for YPCC.

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Thank You for Submitting Your Ideas

Thank you to all of those who submitted a letter of inquiry (LOI) this May. We received many stellar, forward-thinking projects. Some of the exciting trends that we’ve seen this year include:

•    Investigative projects around topics such as racial profiling, clean energy and carbon cap trading;
•   Organizing innovation camps in various cities, bringing together journalists, IT experts and community-based groups;
•    Photographic initiatives to document ways in which America is changing;
•    Creation of databases to help reporters in various fields, and cross-outlet coverage of issues such as homelessness;
•    Creation of phone applications to help reporters cover various issues, as well as initiatives harness mobile phones for citizen reporters;
•    Fellowships for reporters to help improve their coverage of environmental issues, how families are changing, and other issues;
•    Various initiatives to help feed young people’s curiosity around world issues;
•    Initiatives to help everyday people – as well as ‘news junkies’ – to rate the news they read online;
•    After-school programs encouraging young people to write about the world of sports;
•    Awards contest to stimulate IT programmers to create Apps to further a city’s efforts at transparency;
•    Surveys to determine in what ways reporters of all stripes – mainstream, ethnic media, weekly, writers and photographers alike – are prevented from accessing information, data and people they need to carry out their work  

With our new guidelines, we’ll be able to move forward on some. Others – despite how outstanding they are and how much we’ve learned from their sheer creativity – we won’t be able to partner around at this time. We encourage everyone to continue innovating in the name of journalism.

To learn more about our grantmaking process click here.

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Case to Limit Investigative Reporting?

As we watch the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continue to unfold, it reminds us of another situation more apparent to our line of duty.  Last Thursday, New York Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered documentary producer and director Joe Berlinger to turn over to Chevron more than 600 hours of raw footage used to create a film titled Crude: The Real Price of Oil. If Berlinger’s appeal is rejected, this decision could put a chill on the First Amendment rights of documentary filmmakers and investigative journalists. As discussed by the Huffington Post’s Bill Moyers and Michael Winship article “Chevron’s ‘Crude’ Attempt to Suppress Free Speech,” this violation would limit the legal protection a journalist and their sources would receive in court.

As the Independent Documentary Association asserts, "This case offers a clear and compelling argument for more vigorous federal shield laws to protect journalists and their work, better federal laws to protect confidential sources, and stronger standards to prevent entities from piercing the journalists' privilege. We urge the higher courts to overturn this ruling to help ensure the safety and protection of journalists and their subjects, and to promote a free and vital press in our nation and around the world."

As part of the journalism community, what do you think about this situation?

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Director's Notes: Caution

• Banned.  The Pentagon banned four reporters from covering future military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after they published the name of an Army interrogator who was a witness at a hearing there this week. Two attendees of last year's McCormick Foundation Military-Media Conference were involved in the story.  McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Nancy A. Youssef wrote the May 7 story about the messy situation involving reporters from McClatchy's Miami Herald and three Canadian news organizations. Conference participant Col. David Lapan, the director of Defense Press Operations at the Pentagon, said the ban affects only the individual reporters and that their organizations would be allowed to send other reporters to future hearings. "We have been covering Guantanamo for years and we've always played by the rules--and we did in this case as well," said Mindy Marques, managing editor of the Miami Herald. The issue at hand is that the witness had  been previously publically identified. “That reporters are being punished for disclosing information that has been publicly available for years is nothing short of absurd,” said Jameel Jaffer, the deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union.  McCormick Foundation grantee Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, called the drastic bans part of “a long history of lack of access for journalists covering military tribunals and other events at Guantanamo Bay.” What do you think about the reason these reporters are being banned? 
• Downside of Facebook Journalism.  The hazard of "hurry-up" Web journalism reporting took center stage this week. When the identity of the alleged, would-be Times Square bomber was surfacing, the Huffington Post was quick to publish a photo of the wrong Faisal Shahzad, taken from a Facebook page. The case of mistaken identity was eventually corrected. As an article in the Christian Science Monitor warns, “Facebook journalism is a tricky science, and it almost certainly should never involve the publication of photographs of a person whom you think might be an alleged terrorist, and then again, might just be a normal dude. That's the kind of thing that can put someone in danger.”   
• How far are Journalists protected? Bloomberg Businessweek reports that The First Amendment Coalition and six media organizations are asking to see the affidavit filed by investigators who obtained a warrant to search the home of a technology blog editor at Gizmodo.com. The  April blog post revealed secret information about an Apple prototype iPhone, based on a allegedly stolen product they bought  from a college student who said he found it in a bar. “A warrant is a very intrusive device, especially for a journalist,” Peter Scheer, an attorney and executive director of the San Rafael, California-based media group, said. “Affidavits are supposed to be public records and the public has a legitimate interest in seeing that the process used to get the warrant was fair.” A Superior Court Judge in Redwood City, Calif. refused to consider the request.  The warrant violates California’s newsroom search act. Is this pushing the boundary of a journalist's right to report?  
• Quote of the Week: “Democracies die behind closed doors  . . . When government begins closing doors  . . .  it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people.  Selective information is misinformation. The Framers of the First Amendment . . . did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us . . . They protected the people against secret government.” -Judge Damon J. Keith,  (Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft, 2002)

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Resources

Below are some journalism-related resources you might find useful. We’ve categorized them by specifically by our areas of support—content, audience, rights—to help you better understand our priorities.  If you have a resource that you’d like to share that fits under these categories, please send us an email with more information. 

• Content
• Audience
• Rights
• Technical Assistance
• Other Award and Fellowship Opportunities

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Technical Assistance

• http://idealware.org/ provides thoroughly researched, impartial and accessible resources about software to help nonprofits make smart software decisions.

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Director's Notes: Serious Business

• Dangers of Embedding. Crackerjack Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has taken advantage of traveling with the U.S. military to cover wars.  "I've spent weeks at a time visiting U.S. units in the field, hopping C-130s and Blackhawk helicopters and Humvees.  As a result, I have seem more of Iraq and Afghanistan than I possibly could have otherwise, and I think my readers have benefited.  But, embedding comes at a price.  We are observing these wars from just one perspective, not seeing them whole."  Ignatius then expands his theory to include coverage of politics.

If you are interested in learning more about the roots of embedding in recent wars and conflicts, check out our series of Military-Media Conference reports.

• None of Your Business. That was the headline on a recent Chicago Tribune editorial lambasting the Illinois General Assembly as it was pressing ahead with more exemptions on access to public employees' performance evaluations.  The legislative assault on the state's new-and-improved Freedom of Information Act began in January when teacher evaluations were exempted from FOIA, in exchange for union support on a bill that was suppose to help Illinois qualify for the Obama administration's Race to the Top program.  Now, there is more in store.
• Speaking of the President, the White House press corps is in a tizzy over its increasingly hostile relations with the administration.  A detailed report on Politico leaves you wondering whether Team Obama is on the same page as the President on open government and transparency issues.  For example, "a routine press query can draw a string of vitriolic emails.  A negative story can draw a profane high-decibel phone call--or worse.  Some reporters feel like they've been frozen out after crossing the White House."  Politico quoted press secretary Robert Gibbs as saying, "This is the most transparent administration in the history of our country."  Peals of laughter broke out in the briefing room.
• Quote of the Week: "I'm having issues with fully embracing the Twittersphere, because I just don't have the time.  This, to me, is the biggest problem for Twitter---and the entire world that's growing up around it---because in the name of abbreviating communications, it actually makes it more time-consuming to pass along an idea."  -Media Analyst Terry Heaton (thepomoblog.com)

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