by Bill Dawson

It looks like the end of the road for what was left of CNN's once-heralded environment unit.

The Next@CNN show –- a weekly science-space-technology-environment show that was a multi-subject successor to CNN's 1993-2001 environment program, Earth Matters –- aired for the last time on April 30.

Camille Feanny, CNN's last remaining employee assigned to the environment beat full-time, told Environment Writer she decided to leave the network when Next@CNN was cancelled.

"I could have tried to squeeze myself into other things (at CNN)," Feanny said, but such a role "just was not what I wanted at this point."

A CNN spokeswoman did not respond to an inquiry about the cancellation of Next@CNN and the future of the network's environment coverage.

Feanny, who had joined the network's stand-alone environment team as an intern in 1996 and later earned the title of environmental producer, said she believes she was not only the last CNN journalist covering the environment full-time, but also the only one at any major network with such an assignment.

In its heyday in the 1990s, CNN's environment team produced stories for two shows -– Earth Matters on CNN and Network Earth on TBS, also owned by cable entrepreneur Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting.

The environment team had about 15 staffers at its high point and enjoyed the corporate benefits of a "halo effect" deriving from Turner's strong interest in environmental issues, said one-time team member Natalie Pawelski, who lost her job along with other former environment team members in a downsizing move by management at the end of 2003. (She was away from CNN, studying as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University during the 2002-03 academic year.)

Pawelski, who had gone to work at CNN in 1990, joined the environment unit in 1994 as a producer-writer and went on to become the network's environmental correspondent and the host of Earth Matters. Feanny worked as her producer.

Turner's preeminent leadership role at CNN ended after his company's acquisition by Time-Warner in 1996. Earth Matters was cancelled in 2001, soon after Time-Warner's controversial merger with AOL.

Pawelski said "big layoffs" on the environment team accompanied the cancellation of Earth Matters (see her article in Harvard's Nieman Reports), and other one-time team members subsequently lost their jobs in layoffs during 2003.

Feanny said staff members who had been assigned to science, technology and environment news were combined into the unit that began producing Next@CNN, a 30-minute show. It replaced Earth Matters and the also-cancelled Science & Technology Week and CNNDotCom.

Next@CNN was put on hiatus for several months while the combined science-technology-environment unit operated as a military desk, producing stories on war in the Middle East, Feanny said.

She said about half of the combined unit's staff left CNN and about half remained employed there when Next@CNN was cancelled. Although she left, Feanny said there are producers still on the network's staff with a strong interest in environmental coverage.

In June, Turner told CNN employees assembled to celebrate the network's 25th anniversary that he'd like to see it provide more international and environmental coverage, instead of the "pervert of the day."

The Associated Press reported that Turner delivered the critique with his usual "roguish smile." The remarks won "applause and laughter" from CNN employees, the AP said.