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SEJournal's regular Features section cover a wide-range of environmentally related topics in a variety of formats, including essays, first-hand accounts of reporting work, news analysis and opinion.

For questions and comments, to suggest future Features or to offer to write one, email SEJournal Associate Editor Frances Backhouse at sejournaleditor@sej.org.

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November 16, 2022

  • Journalism Industry Program Supports Reporting on Workers — and Work — in a Warming World

    As the economic impacts of climate change intensify, reporting on how individuals are affected, particularly in the Global South, is lagging. Veteran journalist Christine Spolar at The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting details a new initiative to encourage journalists to fill this gap. The story of recent grantees Bhasker Tripathi and Susan Schulman, who have tracked job losses and migrations tied to climate change in India and Iraq.

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November 2, 2022

October 5, 2022

  • On the Persistence of Ocean Plastics

    Concerns about seaborne plastic waste go back decades, but science writer Juli Berwald suggests that myths and disinformation about sources and solutions continue to cloud the waters. From lentil-sized nurdles to sprawling fishing nets, 200 million tons of plastic now fill the ocean and, for her, it has become evident that the ocean plastics story is really a land story. But will the newly signed international treaty on plastics offer relief?

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September 14, 2022

  • Fill Your Plate With Chicken Stories

    Chicken production in the United States is a colossal industry controlled by a few vertically integrated companies. On a much smaller scale, it’s also heritage breeds and increasingly popular backyard flocks. As the latest avian flu outbreak makes headlines, journalist Christine Heinrichs looks at environmental reporting opportunities related to poultry pathogens, pollution and more.

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August 10, 2022

  • Can Qatar’s World Cup Really Be Carbon Neutral?

    Qatar — the world’s highest carbon emitter on a per capita basis — made big promises in its winning bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. But will they deliver? Doha-based journalism professor Craig LaMay writes that while sports megaevent hosts face increasing pressure to address environmental concerns, critical coverage of their follow-through is challenging, especially in countries with no free press or public right to government information.

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June 29, 2022

  • How 'Rights of Nature' Is Recasting the Relationship Between Law and the Earth

    In 2006, a local government council in Pennsylvania concerned about sewage sludge dumping enacted the Western legal system’s first formal “rights of nature” instrument. Today, numerous countries have laws recognizing specific rights or even legal personhood for nature. As legal expert Alice Bleby explains, this new perspective arises from a wide range of contexts and plays out in many different ways.

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June 1, 2022

  • Going Beyond Sensational Drought Headlines Gives Local Audiences News They Need

    As drought continues to afflict the southwestern United States, New Mexico PBS correspondent and producer Laura Paskus writes that environmental journalists must bring home its impact on local communities, while translating the science, making the connection with climate change and holding public officials accountable. Plus, reporting resources and a reminder that the story is too big for any one journalist.

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May 4, 2022

  • Global Satellite Data IDs Tensions Between Food Production, Biodiversity

    A recent study of global cropland expansion highlights several trends that are ripe with environmental news stories. One finding: New farm fields have taken over an area the size of Texas and California combined since the start of the century, an expansion primarily affecting biodiversity-rich natural ecosystems, with Africa leading the cropland boom. Freelancer Gabriel Popkin explores the latest data and the reporting possibilities.

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April 13, 2022

  • Houston and Other Disasters at #SEJ2022

    If it often feels like the world of environmental journalism is all dour worry over our collective futures, resident humorist David Helvarg is here to remind you that our present is just as scary — if for different, and funnier, reasons. In his latest lampoon of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference, Helvarg shares his trademark jests from Houston. Plus, (straighter) reportage from the gathering at the conference coverage page.

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March 30, 2022

  • How — And Why —To Avoid Jargon When Covering Climate

    Climate change reporting is sometimes peppered with jargon that confounds rather than clearly communicates. Audiences may miss not just one story’s message, but lose interest in the broader topic. Contributor Rebecca Hersher, a science reporter for National Public Radio, writes how the public’s connection with climate information increases when both journalists and scientists strive to replace elite terminology with simple and accurate language.

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