Flying home from Florida after my seventh round of jury duty for the Scripps Howard Foundation’s National Journalism Awards, Meeman award for environmental coverage, I’ve been musing on what it takes to win a top journalism award for reporting on the environment. Are there trends in the entries?
Without categorizing any of these as more or less likely to win or lose, I have noticed certain predictable themes.
Probably the most common: toxic legacy stories, ecosystems in peril stories, failures of oversight and enforcement, the environmental impact of corruption and greed, betrayed communities, political wars of preservation versus exploitation of natural resources, environmental health hazards in everyday life, children at risk.
Less common: making sense of what’s happening on a global scale: oceans, climate, biodiversity; Superlative coverage of a big-deal emerging issue; stories of a positive nature: solutions, inventions, heroes, celebrations of nature, science and explanatory work that feeds the sense of wonder.
Each year I’ve worked with different colleagues in choosing a winner from an outstanding and impressive set of entries. To be sure, each person I’ve worked with has brought a different perspective to the impossible task of being a human stopwatch.
Charging up his teams reviewing entries in a wide range of categories, Mike Phillips, Executive Director for Scripps Howard Foundation, reminded us to name ONE winner only, two finalists if we must.
“This is Olympic level competition,” he said. “Sometimes the difference between first and second place is one hundredth of a second.”
Without a stopwatch, what measures apply?
Each and every one of us expect and deserve that reporters or teams with a paid assignment to cover an environmental issue through a powerful news medium – whether print, audio, video, graphically, photographically or interactive online — should be doing a great job, giving readers, viewers and listeners accurate, well reported, insightful journalism and a way to respond and contribute to it. If you are doing this important job, thank you. Society is forever in your debt (and please join SEJ, your tribe needs you). But that won’t win you the top awards.
Every year, and oddly, without setting out to line up the field this way, I’ve witnessed the curve in the competition.
- Probably 20 percent of the entries stay on the table. Fantastic job. Everyone agrees they need another look. Could be winners or finalists.
- Another 60 percent are deemed impressive, with high points to be considered, but they are just not going to beat that other group. Sorry.
- Another 20 percent are definite also-rans. Please try again. Everything gets a little tougher when you have one prize only to award, and competition is wide open to all forms of media and all market sizes.
What makes some entries rise to the top or sink to the bottom?
When historic events occur and coverage truly rises to the occasion, that is hard to beat. Certain news events are guaranteed center stage in the nation’s attention. But there is no guarantee of the journalism they deserve. Competition in producing the first draft of history is fierce. Many versions deserve a B minus, clearly through no fault of the reporter assigned. Sometimes the news organization just doesn’t, or can’t, throw resources into that coverage and it shows.
Other than owning an important story, and giving it definitive coverage, surely a trump card, here are some of the elements recognized in winners. Anyone who hits all of these points deserves the brass ring, don’t you think? And honestly, anyone who gets up in the morning and tries to do any of these things deserves recognition and our thanks.
Here are some of the elements that can propel good entries into the winner’s circle in any environmental journalism contest as far as I’m concerned. These are listed in no particular order:
- Ask spectacularly good questions.
- Overcome the challenges of complexity, resist superficiality on the one extreme and off-putting density of information on the other.
- If dealing with environmental science, skillfullly handle issues of uncertainty.
- Be accurate, stand up to fact checking.
- Create driveway moments with superb writing and production values, so we can’t put down the story, can’t turn off the screen, or turn down the volume.
- Increasingly important: Excellent use of info-graphics and data sets, interactive features and community engagement elements. (Note: no points should ever be lost due to hateful, idiotic online response to heroic journalism… unfortunately judges see plenty of that).
- Bring human faces and voices into the story.
- Brim with imagination in a well-conceived project, creatively presented.
- Deliver high voltage-high value revelations.
- Embody the tradition of journalistic leadership to protect the public interest, enable positive changes for the community, deliver warnings that saved lives or surely will save lives.
Scripps Howard Foundation’s Meeman Award for Environmental Journalism predates the founding of the Society of Environmental Journalists. Indeed SEJ would not exist had not the Foundation’s own David Stolberg suggested to Meeman winner Jim Detjen that he organize past winners and launch it as a new group in 1990.
Since that time our community has witnessed many new opportunities for environmental journalists to take home big awards and build the stature of this critically important beat.
April 1 is the deadline for submissions for SEJ’s own Awards for Reporting on Environment. Please note: I am not involved as a judge for SEJ’s contest. Panels of distinguished judges, appointed by SEJ’s 2010-2011 Awards Committee, co-chaired by Douglas Fischer and Beth Daley, and coordinated by SEJ staffer Chris Rigel, will name winners and finalists in six categories.
Kudos to everyone who aspires to recognition of their best work on this challenging beat. Good luck, and thank you for all you do, every day. Honored with prizes or not, it makes a difference.
An award-winning radio producer, Beth Parke has served as executive director of the Society of Environmental Journalists since 1992.
