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One of the most highly visible and widely respected environmental and science writers in Washington, D.C., Seth Borenstein of the Knight Ridder D.C. bureau, is changing jobs.

But – and it's a good-news - for those interested in high-quality and independent science and environmental journalism. Borenstein is not changing fields.

After more than seven and-one-half years in the Knight Ridder D.C. bureau, Borenstein later this month moves to the Associated Press. He'll stay stationed in the Washington, D.C., bureau as science writer on the national science beat, but will be reporting to A.P. in New York.

Borenstein's decision to leave Knight Ridder, which long has been thought to have one of the strongest D.C. bureaus, is a direct result of the highly volatile and uncertain future the nation's second largest newspaper chain faces in today's marketplace. Pressures from key shareholders have prompted Knight Ridder executives to put the company up for sale. A round of bids for the company is due March 9, and the company may be announcing a decision on its own sale by the end of March. All that raises expectations about staffing reductions, and also raises employees' job security concerns.

Borenstein had made no secret of his job and security anxieties with Knight Ridder under those circumstances. He says that in his new position, he expects his new beat to be science-oriented and not focused, for instance, on environmental regulation and enforcement issues, and not on specific agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency or Department of Homeland Security, agencies he had been covering extensively while with Knight Ridder. He said in a phone interview that he expects to cover climate change science issues more than he had while at Knight Ridder.

Borenstein points to A.P.'s extensive web presence – calling it the lingua franca of journalism – as an attraction. He said he hopes to undertake a lot of enterprise stories and more explanatory journalism, and perhaps fewer breaking stories. "Everything from psychology to climate change to ocean science" is how he describes his new turf. While he is uncertain how much investigative reporting he'll be doing, Borenstein expects to be able to work closely with A.P.'s investigations staff.

Calling the Knight Ridder bureau "the best place I've ever worked," Borenstein said "Had Knight Ridder not been going through what it's going through, I would not have put myself on the market." He said Knight Ridder gave substantial support in the D.C. bureau to environmental coverage.

Given the substantial uncertainty surrounding Knight Ridder's future in the newspaper business in early March, it is unclear how soon and whether the D.C. bureau will move to fill Borenstein's position. The bureau has lost at least two other veteran reporters – both women – over the past few months, and it is known to feel strong pressure to hire women once it proceeds with adding to its current 15-full-time all male national reporting team.

Frequently considered by his journalism colleagues to be something of a reporter's reporter, Borenstein comes across to many as being fearless in pursuing a story, unafraid of "making enemies" among news makers if that's what it takes – and unconcerned, as any good reporter must be, with "being popular." He is often the first or among the first to pose a question at press conferences and other sessions involving numerous reporters, and his questions often are among the most aggressive and most insightful. Physically formidable with a heavy chock of black hair, thick eyebrows, and bushy moustache, he is intimidating to weak-kneed public relations officers and "flacks" with his physical size, dogged determination, and aggressive questions.

Before joining Knight Ridder's Washington bureau as a national correspondent in mid-1998, Borenstein had reported on science with The Orlando Sentinel for four and-one-half years, and he earlier had spent six years writing on environment, science and "weird South Florida life" for The Sun-Sentinel, in Fort Lauderdale. After graduating from Boston University in 1983 with a B.S. in journalism, he had worked for more than five years with two Massachusetts newspapers, first the Belmont Citizen and then The Daily News in Newburyport.

He is active in Investigative Reporters and Editors, IRE, and in the Society of Environmental Journalists, SEJ, but "mostly out of inertia" is not a member of the National Association of Science Writers, NASW. His last day with Knight Ridder is to be March 10, and he starts with A.P. a week later.