Ecology and Climate Journalism Workshop by Atölye BİA

taherinima on 2. December 2024

The workshop, held on Nov 4-5, covered the foundational principles and scope of climate and ecology reporting.

BIA News Desk / Türkçesini Oku

With support from Oslo Metropolitan University, the IPS Communication Foundation/bianet recently the Environmental Journalism and Reporting Workshop on Nov 4-5 as part of its Environmental Journalism Training and Reporting Program.

The two-day online workshop, titled “Ecology and Climate Reporting,” was coordinated by Green Gazette Editor-in-Chief Alev Karakartal, who was also an instructor. The workshop featured presentations from Doğu Eroğlu (ortak.org), Selin Uğurtaş (Climate Desk), and Dr. Ümit Şahin (Istanbul Policy Center).

The majority of participants were freelance journalists producing reports in ecology and climate from Artvin, Bursa, Çanakkale, Dersim, Hatay, İstanbul, Muğla, and Zonguldak.

Rights-based climate and ecology reporting

On the first day, Alev Karakartal presented on “Intersecting/Diverging Points and New Concepts in Climate and Ecology Reporting,” emphasizing the need for a rights-based approach to climate and ecology journalism and the importance of using accessible language for the public.

In the second session, Doğu Eroğlu discussed the principles, methods, and tools for crafting effective climate and ecology stories. He highlighted the importance of technical knowledge in a journalist’s field and the ways climate change is conveyed in daily life.

On day two, Selin Uğurtaş addressed identifying and verifying misinformation and “greenwashing” in climate reporting. She examined the evolution of climate denial over time and provided examples of greenwashing as a misleading information type.

In the workshop’s final session, Dr. Ümit Şahin’s presentation, “Where Are We in the Climate Crisis?” offered data and discussions on the climate crisis based on recent academic sources and reports.

After the training, the participants will publish their own articles on various climate issues.

The 2024 cooperation between JMIC/OsloMet and Bianet focus on climate journalism and media monitoring.

Awards to journalists for stories on environmental issues

taherinima on 19. December 2022

By Lamis Issa

Joudy Alasmar, a Lebanese journalist, won the first award during a closing ceremony in Tunis on 30 November 2022 for her investigation on the landfill in Tripoli.  

From the left to the right, Rafik ben Abdallah a journalist and member of the oversight body for access to information, Joudy Alasmar, a journalist from Lebanon and Karim Belhadj Aissa, ARTICLE19 MENA Transparency Program Coordinator (Photo: ARTICLE 19 MENA)

Her work is part of a five-year collaboration between ARTICLE 19 MENA (Middle East and North Africa), the Institute of Press and Information Sciences (IPSI) at La Manouba University and JMIC on “Support the right to information and investigative journalism in the MENA region.”  The edition of 2022 focused on environmental issues. 

The award ceremony was organized in hybrid format with the presence of trainee journalists, trainers and coaches, and other guests. The trainee journalists presented their experiences in this program and highlighted the challenges they faced and the lessons they learned. 

As part of the ceremony, a discussion was held about investigative journalism and environmental issues in the MENA region.  

Mayssa Sandli, environmental activist and owner of 1st Media specialized in environmental issues in Tunisia. (Photo: ARTICLE19 MENA)

This discussion was conducted between journalists, including investigative journalists and journalists specialized on environmental issues, experts on access to information, and environmental activists who took part in this discussion to debate challenges, the accessibility of environmental information within the laws on access to information in the MENA region, and the importance of environmental journalism.