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Environment Reporting
and generals, police and firefighters, as
they tried to prepare to cope with mass
deaths.
Every story required learning something
new. For one article, I studied
the life of a World War II hero who was
instrumental in saving open space in
Rhode Island and even more successful
at staying anonymous. Then came
the spread of West Nile virus, a chemical
spill in our state’s cleanest river,
worries about mercury in fish, bitter
battles over tighter fishing regulations,
and construction of a huge, multimillion
dollar tunnel under downtown
Providence to capture sewage overflows.
Environmental reporters are doing
a better job than ever with our craft, in
part because so many of them take
advantage of educational programs at
which they learn more about subjects
they cover. I help run the Metcalf Institute
for Marine and Environmental
Rporting at the University of Rhode
Island, which offers a week-long science
program for experienced journalists
and sponsors environmental internships
for minority journalists. Other
organizations offer opportunities for
learning that are up to a year in length.
[See page 65 for a listing of training
programs.]
Advanced training is needed, if only
to better prepare us to confront obstacles
that make our jobs more diffipopular
beat in the newsroom. And
because it’s not predictable. But the
amazing thing about doing this job is
how quickly it humbles us when we
move outside of our ecosystems. I know
the Great Lakes like few other reporters
do, but put me in an Arizona desert
or a Pacific Northwest rainforest and
I’m lost. Yet the parallels I find between
those areas and my familiar territory
fascinate me, as do the stories in
each of those places that are waiting to
be told. ■
Tom Henry reports on the environment
for The (Toledo) Blade. He
joined the newspaper in 1993 after
spending four years at The Bay City
(Mich.) Times and more than six
years at The Tampa Tribune. He has
won several awards for environmental
writing and was the only journalist
to appear at a roundtable
session the International Joint Commission
put together in 1997 to help
commemorate the 25th anniversary
of the Great Lakes Water Quality
Agreement signed by President
Nixon and Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau in 1972.
henry@toast.net
Newsroom Issues Affect Environment Coverage
‘One of our bigger problems can be our own employers.’
By Peter Lord
Photographer Andy Dickerman
and I left our motel in Nova Scotia
at 4:30 a.m. so we could get to
the rescue boat that was leaving at
dawn. We were working on a series of
stories about efforts to save the last 300
or so North Atlantic right whales that
still migrate along the east coast. For
the next 15 hours, we watched Canadian
and American whale rescue experts
chase a rare young right whale
around the Bay of Fundy and struggle
to cut off fishing gear wrapped around
its body.
Andy took hundreds of still photographs,
shot video for our Web site,
and recorded conversations of the rescue
team. I took notes and helped with
some audio recordings. The team tried
again and again to get close enough to
the whale to cut away the life-threatening
line. The whale—a three-year-old
whose sex hadn’t been determined
yet—dove to escape and at times swatted
its huge tail at those who were
trying to save it. The effort was emotional
because many of the same people
had tried to help another whale here
the previous year. She was a big female
in terrible shape with an 18-foot rope
gash across her back. The rescuers
chased her for days and argued about
whether their efforts were helping or
harming her. They said they’d never
seen an animal with such heart. She
fought until she died. Now they hoped
this young whale wouldn’t end up the
same way.
Later that night, I said to Andy: “Can
you believe we actually got paid for a
day like today?”
Learning Is Integral to This
Beat
Such drama doesn’t happen very often.
But even absent such an experience,
being an environmental reporter
can be one of the most important and
rewarding things anyone can do. I’ve
been covering environmental issues
for about 20 years, and every year I find
new stories to tell. Since our whale
series ran in October 2000, I did a sixpart
series showing the damage lead
paint poisoning does to Rhode Island’s
young children. We were told that our
pictures and stories finally made legislators
aware of the severity of the problem.
After four years of failure, the
legislature enacted a bill last summer
that should lead to greatly reducing
such poisonings in the future.
On September 11, 2001, I was sent
to Boston’s Logan Airport where I saw
fear and confusion sweep through the
crowds before police finally sent everyone
home. As was the case with environmental
reporters at many other
newspapers, my assignment soon became
coverage of responses to
bioterrorism. I wrote about doctors
64 Nieman Reports / Winter 2002