Society of Environmental Journalists

Headquartered near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) provides more than anything else a virtual network (and during its annual conferences a face-to-face network) of journalists learning from and sharing with each other. On any given day, SEJ members ask questions of their peers on everything ranging from best sources on a particular issue to useful Web sites and even to things such as which digital recorders are best for conducting telephone or in-person interviews. Members routinely share their experiences and insights with their online colleagues, often displaying an impressive [Page 820]depth of understanding on a wide range of environmental and natural resources issues.

In addition to maintaining a public online presence (see the Further Readings), as well as a members-only site, over the years, SEJ has steadily expanded its original program activities aimed at meeting its mission of advancing public understanding of environmental issues through efforts to improve environmental reporting. For instance, a biweekly “TipSheet” distributed to members offers story ideas and source suggestions, and the group distributes and maintains a daily digest and database of environmental news stories.

Communicating about the environment opens a world of opportunities as expansive as the Grand Canyon, Earth's life-giving atmosphere, or the planet's deepest and least-explored ocean bottoms. This world is as nearby and immediate as the ubiquitous dust mites common to many of our residences or the lead-painted windowsills and walls still poisoning children even as they play in their homes. The environment is an expansive field defined by scientists, engineers, lawyers, and citizen activists. Each group brings its own important skills and capabilities to the table. But competency in communicating with either the broadest possible or the most specialized audiences often is not among those capabilities. The situation cries out for effective communication skills—writing, reporting, editing, broadcasting, public speaking, blog-ging, and more—skills that are so treasured, but often so lacking in these highly complex, technical, and sometimes controversial fields.

A keen awareness of those realities brought a founding group of 15 or so reporters together in a crowded Washington, D.C., conference room in 1990. Accustomed to working with little knowledge of what other environmental journalists were doing across the country, they had no idea of what they were starting: They were giving birth to a community-networking membership organization that within a decade would have more than 1,000 members nationally and internationally—and that would come to be seen as one of the most effective journalism membership organizations in the country.

Within its first two decades, SEJ distinguished itself for its extensive network of volunteer members overseeing everything from a lively Listserv and Web site to a glossy quarterly journal, critical “how to cover” resource materials, and lists of expert sources on a wide range of environmental subjects. SEJ's flagship activity each year is a university-based annual conference that regularly attracts not only hundreds of leading reporters and editors but also scores of top news makers. The SEJ annual fall conferences play host to sitting government officials and Hollywood celebrities; corporate executives; leading academics, researchers, and scholars; and citizen activists.

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