Earth Journalism Network (EJN) is an Internews and Internews Europe project dedicated to the empowerment of environmental journalists from developing countries around the world. Internews is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to empower local media worldwide to give people the news and information they need, the ability to connect, and the means to make their voices heard. Through training workshops, the development of training and reference materials, broader platforms for production and distribution, and the dispersion of small grants, EJN has worked to establish and strengthen networks of environmental journalists since its founding in 2006. EJN’s members are thousands of journalists from 70 countries around the world. Together, they have produced over 3,500 stories for print, radio, and online outlets focusing specifically on issues such as climate change, biodiversity, water, environment health, and oceans and coastal resources.
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Fellowships
Both independently and in partnership with other organizations, the Earth Journalism Network awards fellowships to top journalists that allow them to attend crucial events and conferences within the field of environmentalism. At these summits, which have included several Conferences of the Parties (COPs) and Rio+20, journalists participate in capacity-building activities and report on event developments for their local media outlets. Prior to and throughout these events, EJN holds numerous workshops to train reporters on the best practices of environmental journalism.
Earth Journalism Scholars Program
At the start of 2013, the Earth Journalism Network established a partnership with the graduate School of Communication of the University of California in Berkeley. The centerpiece of this collaboration will be a graduate level course on international environmental reporting, include overseas reporting trips for students, and, in future years, Fellowships for foreign mid-career journalists to attend U.C. Berkeley for a semester.
Earth Journalism Network Small Grant
Designed to encourage innovation and creativity in environmental coverage, the creation of new environment journalists networks and building the capacity of journalists, the Earth Journalism Small Grant Project has so far supported ten projects in ten different countries of the world. In 2012, five projects in Argentina, Central Africa Republic, India, Philippines and Tunisia shared $50,000 to helped build news environment journalists networks while strengthening existing ones.
GeoJournalism
The Earth Journalism Network partnered with the Brazilian non-profit O Eco in 2012 to launch InfoAmazonia, an interactive digital map that tracks both environmental degradation across the Amazon as a result of activities that include mining, deforestation, and oil drilling, and environmental media coverage pertaining to the region. It is currently developing Climate Commons, a similar mapping tool for the United States, to be launched in 2013.
Murder of Hang Serei Oudom
In September 2012, the Earth Journalism Network and the Society of Environmental Journalists circulated a joint petition calling on the Cambodian government to launch a full investigation into the murder of environmental journalist Hang Serei Oudom. Oudom had been covering illegal logging activities for the local newspaper Vorakchun Khmer Daily when his body was discovered with several axe blows to the head. The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin called attention to this petition on his blog Dot Earth.
Leadership
James Fahn, a journalist who has primarily focused on environmental issues in developing countries, is the executive director of Earth Journalism Network. For nine years during the 1990s, Fahn was based in Thailand where he was a reporter and editor for The Nation, an English-language daily newspaper based in Bangkok, and hosted a television show. He was co-founder of the Thai Society of Environmental Journalists. Fahn received UNEP’s Global 500 Award for The Nation’s environmental reporting, and was pinned by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn for his service to Thailand. His A Land on Fire, published in 2003, recounts the issues and scandals he uncovered while working on the environmental beat in Southeast Asia. He holds a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia University.
Support
The activities of the Earth Journalism Network have been funded by the Marisla Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, the Robert & Michelle Friend Foundation, the Germeshausen Foundation, the Flora Family Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the Kendeda Fund, the Christensen Fund, the Oak Foundation, the Smart Family Foundation, the Edgerton Family Foundation, the European Commission, the U.K. Department for International Development, the Swedish International Development Agency, the United Nations Foundation, the U.N. Environment Programme, the World Bank, the Alumni Fund of the Philanthropy Workshop West at the Tides Foundation and an anonymous donor from the Rockefeller family.
EJN has strategic partnerships with the International Center for Communications Development in China, the Society of Indonesian Environmental Journalists (SIEJ), the Vietnam Forum of Environmental Journalists (VFEJ), the Network of Climate Change Journalists from the Greater Horn of Africa (NECJOGHA), the Mexican Network of Environmental Journalists (REMPA), the Philippines Network of Environmental Journalists (PNEJ), the Thai Society of Environmental Journalists, the Forum of Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI), the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) in the U.S., the Union of Environmental Journalists (Sierra Leone), the Cambodian Institute for Media Studies, The Moscow Times, European Youth Press, the Peruvian Provincial Journalists Network, the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Panos Institute, China Dialogue, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), O Eco in Brazil, and Environment News Trust.