This column seeks to address a dinner guest’s question.

It was its stark simplicity that made it so seemingly unanswerable. There should be a simple and straightforward answer. There just wasn’t.

Instead, I found myself gagging on my lima beans, or whatever they were. Coming back to the question often, without success, stammering, dodging, evading, only to return to the issue again and again long after the subject mercifully had changed several times over.

You no doubt would have done better. So have at it.

“Who are the best environmental reporters in the country right now?” one dinner guest first asked. “And what makes an environmental reporter ‘good’ in the first place?” the spouse instantly chimed in.

At first gasp, the second question provided cover, an instant at least to think through the first query.

In the end, of course, it proved no more easily answered, least of all by weekend dinner guest standards.

Let it be said here that these were no naive questioners lobbing these time-bombs, one having been a former top federal environmental official and the other now a veep at a major corporation.

Good questions, those. And, in fact, some remotely plausible answers came to mind. Some specific names that no doubt wouldn’t surprise you. That you yourself might have put forward as candidates.

But I found myself immediately qualifying the questions to focus on general-circulation, and not specialized media, publications. Is that in fact where the best reporting is being done?

Interesting too that I found myself focusing also only on print media, and not on broadcast, whether rightly or wrongly. Who’s to say that newspapers, such as so many are nowadays, have a lock on the best environmental reporters? What about today’s pamphleteers and leafleteers or “zine” reporters?

Sure, there were the impulse answers. But with each answer a seeming cascade of caveats.

“Joe Blither at the Daily Huzzah, but his editors are insisting now that he also cover technology and science and even the police beat occasionally. It’s just not clear he’s really an environmental reporter any more. He likely wouldn’t even accept that label himself.”

“Sally McDye at the Tricounty Blither does great work, but she’s left to go on a sabbatical and won’t be back on the beat for several months” [if ever].

Those kinds of caveats.

The guests themselves countered with some candidate names themselves: Phil Shabecoff, Keith Schneider, Jack Cushman (Times-men all, it must be noted, though only Cushman still, and he no longer on the beat.)

One could argue, and some might, that Gregg Easterbrook, ABC’s Barry Serrafin or even 20/20’s John Stossell, Bill McKibben, or Rachel’s Peter Montague be added to the list, whether for fame or for infamy, depending on one’s perspective.

More important than who (among many) is “the best” perhaps is what makes an environmental reporter “good” in the first place.

Good editors… good news organization support for this particular beat… at least as much emphasis on reporting as on sheer writing… a professional detachment from the emotional pros-and-cons on these issues… a vigorous commitment to editorial independence and integrity…an appropriate “sense of outrage” — these are the things that make for a good reporter on this beat, as with others, we digested (or is it digressed?) over desert.

Pass the decaf, please, Louise.

A good environmental reporter. The best environmental reporters.

Know them when you see them? Have a rationale for naming them?

Free for dinner some time?

Most summer previews focus on political races, baseball rivalries, blockbuster movies, and vacation destinations. Ours reports on the critical convergence of combustible environmental issues that promise to keep journalists on their sandal-shorn toes all summer.

Ü Weather watch: The past three winters have been the warmest in U.S. history, and 1999 and 1998 were the two warmest years on record. Who thinks the summers are getting cooler? La Niña, which was responsible for last summer’s drought, is expected to continue diminishing during the next few months, but the National Weather Service predicts that above-normal temperatures will keep drought-stricken areas of the country dry through the summer (see p.4). Contact: Curtis Carey, National Weather Service/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Silver Spring, MD, (301) 713-0622; http://www.noaa.gov.

ÜSmog alert/on the ground: Ground-level ozone is “on the rise in certain parts of the country, including many rural areas” and many national parks, according to a new EPA study. Air pollution is “actually worsening in some areas,” according to a new American Lung Association study. Washington, D.C., had some “code orange”smog alert days in early May. Contacts: Dave Ryan, EPA, (202) 260-2981; American Lung Association, New York, NY, (212) 315-8700; Frank O’Donnell, Clean Air Trust, Washington, DC, (202) 785-9625.

ÜSmog alert/in the courts: Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of EPA’s embattled soot and smog regulations, the noisy and contentious clean air debate will once again roar this summer, especially if smog levels and alerts increase. In the meantime, ozone transport battles between the Midwest and the Northeast continue to be waged in courts at several levels. Contacts: Dave Ryan, EPA, (202) 260-2981; Vickie Patton, Environmental Defense, (303) 440-4901.

ÜElectricity crunch: “There will be outages and brownouts this summer,” Energy Secretary Bill Richardson told The Wall Street Journal, which predicts energy shortages are “likely to strike as the days lengthen and the temperatures rise.” Blame deregulation and a decade-long booming economy that has encouraged Americans to buy every new appliance, gizmo, and computer accessory they can plug into a socket. Contacts: Department of Energy, (202) 586-5575; http://www.doe.gov; Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA (650) 855-2000.

ÜForest road forecast: The public comment period on the draft Administra-tion proposal to ban new road construc-tion in national forests, continuing through mid-July, will also include public meetings and aggressive public opinion campaigns by environmentalists and the timber industry. No one seems happy with the proposal, so what will the final plan look like? Will it continue to exclude the Tongass National Forest in Alaska from the road ban? Will it forbid logging in any form or location? Contacts: National Forest Service/USDA, http://roadless.fs.fed.us; Ken Rait, Heritage Forests Campaign, Portland, OR, (503) 283-6343; American Forest and Paper Association, Washington, DC, (202) 463-2700.

ÜForest fire forecast: Last month’s Los Alamos fire was out of control even before the driest months of the summer. If summer temperatures are above normal, and the country sees a rerun of last summer’s drought, there will be few controlled burns. Contact: National Interagency Fire Center, Boise, ID, (208) 387-5512; http://www.nifc.gov..

ÜMore hurricanes: More hurricanes than usual are expected this season along the East and Gulf Coasts and the Caribbean Islands, according to NOAA scientists. Their forecast also warns of stronger, longer-lasting storms, some of which could pose threats to land during the hurricane season, which started this month and continues through November. Factors include the on-going La Niña, and warmer than normal Atlantic Ocean temperatures. Contacts: Curtis Carey, National Weather Service/NOAA, Silver Spring, MD, (301) 713-0622; Frank Lepore, NOAA’s National Hurricane Center, Miami, FL, (305) 229-4404.

ÜGreener SUVs? The Ford Motor Company may have admitted that its sport utility vehicles are gas-guzzling, polluting menaces, but it was vague on the details of whether — or how — it would green-up its popular vehicles. Other car manufacturers may follow Ford’s example, or try to grind their com-petition into a pulp during what some see as a weak moment of lunacy. But Ford executives will meet with environmental-ists in August, discussing a yet-to-be-determined agenda which will probably include SUVs’ contributions to global warming. Contacts: Terry Bresnihan, Ford Motor Co., Dearborn, MI, (313) 337-2456, http://www.ford.com; Carl Pope, Sierra Club, San Francisco, CA, (415) 977-5500.

ÜLooming land battle: Despite bipartisan support from the House of Representatives last month for a multi-billion-dollar government conservation and land purchase fund, the bill has a shaky prognosis in the U.S. Senate, where Western property-rights advocates are gearing for a fight. Some senators are “worried about a government rush to buy private land” and “unbridled government acquisitions,” according to the Associated Press. Contacts: Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, (202) 224-4971; U.S. Department of the Interior, (202) 208-3100, http://www.doi.gov.

ÜExpanding food fight: The biotech food fight maintains momentum, as labeling proponents beat up on the Food and Drug Administration’s recent regulation plan that lacks labeling requirements for genetically engineered ingredients. The battle also expands to include rare animals and wildlife, which an Interior Department science advisor says could be threatened by genetically engineered fish and plants now being developed in labs. Contacts: Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, MD, (301) 827-6242; http://www.fda.gov; Department of the Interior, (202) 208-3100, http://www.doi.gov.

ÜBetter emissions modeling: EPA needs to improve the computer model it uses to estimate vehicle pollution because the model is underestimating emissions of volatile organic compounds and inaccurately estimating emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, according to the National Research Council. An EPA spokesman calls the study “constructive, fair and balanced,” expect some changes in the model. Contacts: Dave Ryan, EPA, (202) 260-2981, Bill Kearney, National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences, (202) 334-2138; http://www.nationalacademies.org.

ÜHot temperatures, hot bats: Is this year’s explosion of home runs due to global warming? During the past 25 years, the average temperature has risen about 1 degree, and the average number of home runs hit per major league game has risen 65 percent. “Mere coincidence? Maybe not,” writes Sports Illustrated. “High school physics teaches that flying objects face less resistance when the air is less dense – the implication, in elementary terms, is that balls go farther in warm weather.” In 1998, one of the four hottest years on record, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa became the two hottest home run hitters in history. Contacts: Major League Baseball, http://www.majorleaguebaseball.com; local box scores.

A Virginia Commonwealth University master’s thesis suggests that environmental journalists will increasingly use geographic information systems (GIS) in the newsroom as an expansion of their computer-assisted reporting activities.

“As journalists become more proficient in other areas of computer-assisted reporting such as using the internet, databases, and spreadsheets, journalists will have more of the skills needed to learn GIS,” writes Mary Anthony Davis in the thesis, which she submitted in pursuit of a Master of Interdisciplinary Studies degree.

Estimating that roughly one-third of environmental journalists already are using GIS — an estimate many likely will find quite high — Davis pointed to reporting benefits such as “the ability to analyze large volumes of multiple datasets quickly and an increased ability to see trends and patterns when the data is viewed on a map.”

Among reasons environmental reporters are not using GIS she points to “a lack of awareness” of the technology and its journalistic applications, and shortages of training and funding.

Characterizing GIS as “a new idea in the field of journalism,” Davis writes that use of GIS in environmental work generally is “steadily expanding.”

“Environmental journalists will need a solid understanding of how GIS works in order to better convey information about its use to the public,” she writes in the thesis, suggesting its applicability in particular to investigative reporting.

“When a journalist views multiple datasets together on a map, questions of correlation or cause and effect are raised, leading one to further investigate by traditional reporting as well as statistical evaluation. Therefore, GIS could be a tool that drives policy if it improves a reporter’s ability to make the public aware of environmental situations that might otherwise go unnoticed.”

Davis points to research suggesting that “pushpins and a map” ranked seventh among 50 tools sought by a group of journalists surveyed about resources needed in their work. She points to J.T. Johnson of San Francisco State University and of the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR) as suggesting that GIS is “a much more efficient method of doing the same thing,” and she writes that GIS “also allows journalists to analyze multiple datasets at the same time.” She reports Johnson as suggesting that reporters using GIS “generate more questions and find answers by manipulating data.

She points to University of Miami annual surveys showing increased use of spreadsheet, database, online services, and mapping programs between 1994 and 1996. In 1994, she says, describing those surveys, one in five newspapers surveyed were using mapping software. Two years later, one in four newspapers reported they were using mapping software.

Davis’ thesis also makes the point that mapping-assisted reporting need not show up on the air or in print to be useful to the reporters. “Mapping is a way for the journalist to visualize data, see trends, and therefore ask more questions,” she quotes one researcher as saying.

Davis’ thesis points to “prerequisites” for journalists wanting to use GIS: understanding basic PC operations; learning remote and online services; knowing how to generate graphics and use spreadsheets; learning database and statistical software. The payoff, she suggests, comes in the audiences’ being better able to understand graphics presentations than they can columns of numbers.

Davis’s final survey pool consisted of only some 62 respondents to a survey posted on six different electronic mailing lists frequented by reporters. Fifty-two respondents to the survey say they have covered environmental issues. Davis then conducted follow-up phone interviews with five journalists who said they had used GIS on environmental stories and who indicated an interest in discussing their experiences with her.

Among other demographic findings, Davis found that 86 percent of those surveyed reported finding GIS “very helpful” in their reporting, with the remaining 14 percent saying it had been “somewhat helpful. All said they would use GIS again to assist in reporting.”

Common advice from those reporters having used GIS in the newsroom: First learn databases and spreadsheets. The reasons most often cited by reporters for not using GIS: lack of awareness and lack of funding, inadequate time for learning the software and a shortage of training opportunities.

“One does not need a graduate degree to use GIS in reporting, but more reporting experience would incline one toward using the tool,” she writes in her thesis, noting that most reporters using GIS in their work had previously done some computer-assisted reporting.

As a word of caution, Davis in her thesis writes that “GIS should be used to encourage further investigation, not for propagating misinformation.” Mapping results are best confirmed and verified by independent experts, she suggests, while emphasizing that more environmental journalists “should make use of this powerful, helpful tool.”

GIS AND E-JOURNALISM RESOURCES

The materials are part of an ongoing EHC effort aimed at helping journalists make better use of GIS (or “mapping”) software in reporting on environmental, natural resources, and natural disaster stories. Provided and distributed by Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., (ESRI), of Redlands, California, the materials include:

• Managing Natural Resources with GIS, a 117-page booklet with individual chapters on issues ranging from endangered species to air pollution, from disaster planning and recovery to clean water, brownfields, and coastal protection;
• GIS for Health Organizations, a 102-page booklet with individual chapters on issues ranging from epidemiology to public health and site location;
• Tutorial CD ROMs on ESRI’s ArcView® GIS software program, and CD ROMs on geography, travel routing, and environmental risk assessment; and
• A three-minute “High Tech Maps” segment broadcast by KUSI-TV, Channel 9, in San Diego on use of GIS software in police, fire and rescue, business, and Internet applications.

EHC and the Radio Television and News Directors Foundation (RTNDF) are cosponsoring a special “GIS and Environmental Journalism” program on Saturday, October 21, 2000, as part of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) meeting at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mi. Confirmed presenters at that session are Charles G. (Chip) Groat, director of USGS; Bruno Tedeschi of the Bergen Record in Trenton, N.J.; and Max Crandall of ESRI, Inc. The session moderator is Debora Halpern, assistant news director of WFLA-TV, Newschanel 8, in Tampa, Fl., a station that makes extensive use of GIS in its reporting.

EHC expects to announce additional GIS/environmental reporting initiatives in coming months. Accredited reporters who have not received the above-mentioned GIS materials by the end of June should contact Ms. Kristin Marstiller of EHC at marstilk@nsc.org to request the information.

Note: Formerly published by the National Safety Council. Reprinted with permission.