About Us

The Interactive Environmental Journalism program started in the summer of 2006, the inspiration of Cole Campbell, then dean of the Reynolds School of Journalism. Cole’s vision for the program was about inventing forms of journalism that matter:

Everything we do as journalists is informed by the way we think: how we think journalism works, how we think people use journalism, how we think the individuals and institutions that journalists cover operate. If the way we think no longer matches the changing world, our journalism will be off-kilter.

At the Reynolds School of Journalism, we are examining the mental models journalism has been working with – and we will invent other models to see if environmental journalism can lead the way in making journalism overall far more effective.

Traditional environmental journalism assumes a professional practice based on trained reporters and editors who find authoritative information and communicate it authoritatively to the public. A journalist finds the experts who know what is (or ought to be) happening in the domain of the environment. The journalist then extracts what the experts know and transmits this knowledge to everybody else.

In this model, journalism’s primary function is to secure and disseminate information – “the best obtainable version of the truth,” to use an axiom popularized by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of Watergate fame. This kind of journalism is quite valuable. But it contains inherent limits that fail to address the complex environmental problems facing our society today.

The traditional model of journalism presumes that someone always knows the truth about complex issues, and the public interest is served when journalists faithfully fulfill their role in transmitting expert truth to the public. But when it comes to environmental journalism, that presumption may not bear out.

Consider a recent case. Scientific experts and policy makers knew of the threat to New Orleans posed by a catastrophic hurricane, and the Times-Picayune and other news outlets reported these details to the public. But no one knew when such a hurricane might strike. Therefore there was no “best obtainable version of the truth” about how aggressively public agencies should reinforce levees or take other expensive steps to mitigate such a potential catastrophe.

In hindsight, after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, we can say the costs of reconstruction will be several orders of magnitude higher than the cost of preparedness. But to make the best judgment in a situation of uncertainty about when bad things might happen requires more than expertise. It requires what Daniel Yankelovich calls “public judgment,” a sound grasp of what’s at issue and a shared sense of what to do about it.

At the Reynolds School we are exploring how journalism can help people come to public judgment. What if journalists engaged people in imagining the future that they want to live in and in analyzing possible approaches to achieve that future?

To begin to answer to these questions, we are developing approaches to interactive environmental journalism that we believe will help people come to public judgment about uncertain choices and tradeoffs. In addition to authoritative transmission of expert knowledge, interactive journalism encompasses:

• Narrative: The principal way people make sense of the world – and convert that sense into deeper meaning – is through stories. Stories are not the exclusive domain of journalists or scientists; all people use stories to convert their experience and perception into an understanding of the world. Journalists can help people reach public judgment by helping them share their stories.

• Exploration: To enrich their stories, people search out information, test ideas and search for patterns. Experts can help by sharing their own explorations, but they cannot explore everything for the rest of us. Journalists can help people explore data, test facts, use new frames and imagine future scenarios.

• Conversation: People share their stories and explorations in conversations with one another. And these conversations – in which they listen as well as speak – reshape their understanding. Journalists can facilitate conversations through interviews, online forums and other means.

So, as examples, we will explore how journalists can best use rapidly developing Internet technologies such as blogs, RSS, news aggregators and wikis. How can we most effectively use Flash™ for engaging games and simulations? How can we tell the most compelling stories that make full use of emerging communication technologies?

Faculty involved in the graduate program include:

Larry Dailey, MA, Reynolds Chair of Media Technology & former multimedia producer at MSNBC.com Howard Goldbaum, MA, Associate Professor, Interactive Media
Dr. Edward Lenert, J.D., Professor and Fred W. Smith Chair in Critical Thinking and Ethical Practices
Dr. Donica Mensing, Director of Graduate Studies
Dr. David Ryfe, Associate Professor, Journalism & Democracy

The University of Nevada, Reno, is situated at the edge of the Sierra Nevada, 45 minutes from Lake Tahoe, spectacular desert, the Mount Rose Wilderness area and world class ski resorts.

We’re a campus of 15,000 students ranked in the top 250 of all campuses in the United States. The Reynolds School of Journalism is one of the oldest accredited journalism schools in the country and counts six Pulitizer prize winners among its alumni.

Further information about the program is available from Reynolds School Graduate Director Donica Mensing, 775-784-4198.