Communities on Lakes Michigan and Superior predict it will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars to repair damage linked to climate change. Warmer temperatures have produced algae blooms that have shut down beaches and threatened water supplies. Wetter springs and summers have battered farmers’ fields.
Poynter’s Beat Academy helps reporters across the country tell innovative stories about the local impacts and responses to climate change. In a series of three webinars, we cover the unequal and uneven effects of a warmer world. We explore the steps communities are taking today to protect people and property against the damaging trends of the future. We give journalists a leg up in covering the ways in which Washington’s new $369 billion climate change program is coming to earth in their backyards.
Through a partnership with Climate Central, webinar attendees will hear from top federal and state policy hands and award-winning reporters.
Sessions take place April 6, 13 and 27, from 1 to 2:30 Eastern. Enroll here.
For those who want to take their reporting to the next level, Poynter is pleased to offer up to $15,000 each to three newsrooms or freelancers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin to support targeted reporting projects on responses and solutions to climate change in the Great Lakes region. All platforms — online, radio, video, print — are eligible to apply. Poynter will provide story coaching to assist in the coverage.
Applicants must provide:
- A brief description of what they will probe, why they believe there is a story to be told, and how they plan to report the story.
- A timeline for producing the reporting project.
- A plan for a community event tied to the project.
- A budget showing how the grant funds will be spent.
- A target date for publication.
- The staff who will work on the project and their qualifications.
Applicants must have attended or reviewed all three sessions on climate change offered through Beat Academy. They must provide a story for the Poynter newsroom to share what they accomplished through this project and what they learned. They must also provide a report showing the use of funds and the outcomes of their work by Dec. 1, 2023. (All funds must be spent, and coverage appeared in print, on air or online, by that date.)
Applications are due May 19, three weeks after the final session. A panel assembled by Poynter will vet all applications and announce the winners by the end of June.
Funding support is provided by the Joyce Foundation.
Questions? Contact Jon Greenberg at beatacademy@poynter.org.
