Earth Journalism Awards
Enhancing the status of environmental journalism and climate change reporting
Context and Issue:
Climate change is currently one of the biggest threats facing humanity. It is also a threat in which there is a huge gap of information between those reporting on climate change and those who need to understand and be aware of the impact of climate change. The gap is not only geographical: there is also a problem with reports being confusing and inaccessible to the general public. The Earth Journalism Awards were designed to encourage and improve climate change reporting by supporting excellence in environmental journalism. The awards programme aimed to generate community and national media coverage as well as public debate on climate change across the world, particularly in developing countries that are most affected by climate change but have the least access to information about it. The Earth Journalism Awards were launched on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, at the G8 Environmental Ministers' meeting in Syracuse, Italy. The competition was open from June 5th to September 7th, 2009, and culminated in a ceremony on December 14th 2009, on the eve of the final week of high level negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change summit in Copenhagen.
Project's activities:
The national and regional rounds of selection resulted in seven regional awards, seven honorary mentions and 49 pre-selected stories for thematic awards. Thereafter, an international jury of experts selected eight thematic awards and eight honorary mentions. The gala awards ceremony took place on December 14, 2009, in Copenhagen, in the presence of 350 policy makers, climate change experts, campaigning organisations, NGOs and media professionals, and was webcast live for 660 Internet users. Award winners were given access to key negotiators through the Climate Change Media Partnership. Twenty-six negotiators also attended the Earth Journalism Awards ceremony, increasing the scope of the award winners’ work further. The 15 award winners were invited to Copenhagen to cover COP15 and participate in meetings with key experts from the media sector. They produced an estimated 250 stories from or after the Copenhagen Summit that were published or aired by their home media organisations.
Participants and Beneficiaries:
The Earth Journalism Awards' participants and beneficiaries included journalists and photojournalists from print, radio, TV and online media, and bloggers and citizen journalists. Among them were 902 registered participants from 145 countries, 17 winning journalists, media outlets from around the world, governmental and inter-governmental organisations, and a general public of 15,000 media professionals, activists, thinkers, EJA partners and other Internet users reached by the project's mailing list, and a minimum of 30,000 Internet users.
Outcomes:
Contacts were established at the summit and valuable networks were formed between the journalists themselves. Though they were created through and during the programme, they will continue to prove their worth for as long as they exist. All the winning journalists have become members of EJNET - a network of over 500 environmental journalists - in which information is shared on everything from upcoming events to key sources. Internews intends to develop further the relationships built through the Earth Journalism Awards with civil society organisations. Working together will increase our aim to improve awareness of excellence in environmental reporting and continue to improve the capacity of journalists to accurately cover the complex negotiations taking place. Internews intends to tap into the pool of excellent journalists that were brought together through the Earth Journalism Awards when we identify trainers regionally. Their skills and passion for reporting on climate change makes them excellent candidates for trainers in the field of environmental journalism.
"If we are to have any hope of reversing the effects of climate change, then we have a monumental task of educating the six billion people on our planet about how climate change works and what they can do to help. The media is critical in this effort, since just one reporter has the ability to reach thousands, even millions, of people. These awards help to expand and honour these vitally important efforts."
Nobel Peace prize winner and Chair of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Earth Journalism Awards Ceremony, December 14, 2009
"Today, millions of people are already suffering because of climate change. Although developing countries did not cause the climate crisis, poor nations are suffering the most as unpredictable weather patterns and the increase in natural disasters affects access to food, water and shelter. We must end the deathly silence around this crisis because it is a major impediment for international action. Those helping raise awareness of the crisis through journalism should be praised for doing so."
Kofi Annan, President of the Global Humanitarian Forum
