Goals & Objectives:

Project Goals

1. Develop key recommendations for media organizations and philanthropic foundations to advance equitable and community-based environmental journalism in order to uplift the narratives of frontline environmental justice communities and invoke civic change. 
2. Operationalize key findings into the development of a toolkit for use by media organizations and journalists to inspire organizational change towards sustained community-centered environmental journalism. 
3. Develop a strategic implementation plan for Great Lakes Now (GLN) to enhance and sustain their environmental justice and community-based reporting initiatives, including: (1) A guide for leveraging insights from the Media with Impact final report to inform project proposal development and bolster grant funding applications; (2) A corresponding case study of two example grant proposal concepts tailored towards the Press Forward journalism funding coalition; and (3) Recommended best practices and protocols to equitably engage with environmental justice leaders and produce content for GLN’s Waves of Change digital series. 

Project Responsibilities

In an effort to critically assess our role as outside researchers engaging with communities that have been experienced past harm by academic institutions (including the University of Michigan); decolonize our research methodology and approach; and acknowledge the generous contributions and support of our stakeholder partners – without whom this project would not have been possible – our team established and committed to upholding the following responsibilities:   

1. Talk to and engage with as diverse and representative a set of individuals as possible throughout the Great Lakes Region.
2. Commit to the principles of environmental justice and community-based participatory research by engaging in decolonial practices as much as possible (given our position at the University of Michigan) and embodying non-extractive, co-produced, and reciprocal relationships. 
3. Create a body of work in collaboration with our stakeholder partners that directly serves their needs and priorities and provides value to a broad variety of potential users.

Theoretical Justification, Social Benefit, or Significance:

The journalism sector has struggled with financial strain, a decline in public trust, and an industry-wide shift away from print news since the early 2000s. Due to this financial strain, local media coverage has been on a decline, creating a void of reliable news sources for many communities. This is felt most acutely in underserved communities. The void of community-driven news coverage has been predominantly filled by large, privately-owned, centralized, and corporatized mainstream media organizations that seek to maximize returns through the production of high quantities of stories at the lowest possible cost. Both the decline in local media organizations and the ascendancy of centralized, corporate media have contributed to a growing disconnect between reporters and communities, which have created fewer community connections and more distrust. For environmental journalism in particular, many journalists lack the knowledge, training, and resources to accurately and authentically report on environmental justice issues. To help remedy this situation, there is a growing need and interest to help rebuild environmental media organizations, and individual reporters, to more equitably uplift the narratives of frontline environmental justice communities.

While a limited amount of existing toolkits and literature provide media organizations with suggestions on how to equitably engage with communities and/or how to center equity in environmental and climate change reporting, this study advances the field by comprehensively prioritizing the diverse insights of key stakeholders into a set of recommendations intended for both environmental media organizations and philanthropic institutions. Our key findings are operationalized into a toolkit that provides recommended goals, strategies, and actions for media organizations and journalists to advance equitable and community-based environmental journalism. Thus, our recommendations in this report and our corresponding toolkit are designed to help amplify the lived experiences and stories of frontline environmental justice communities in order to promote community change and, ideally, help reinvigorate environmental journalism. 

Specific Activities & Duration:

To develop our recommendations, we performed both a comprehensive literature review and conducted interviews. Our team reviewed existing research, toolkits, and suggested best practices oriented towards media organizations, journalists, funders, and scholars. We also conducted 42 interviews with community organization leaders, media organizations, and experts and funders in the field of journalism, the environment, and community engagement. These interviews helped us to gain a better understanding of perceptions of current media coverage of environmental justice issues; media organizations' objectives and corresponding strategies related to community engagement and diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice; perceived gaps and desired improvements in how media organizations engage with the communities whose stories they report upon; and current and future philanthropic priorities regarding journalism, community engagement, equity, justice, and diversity initiatives. We centered interviewees’ insights into both the development of our eight key findings and corresponding recommendations along with a toolkit. 

Integrative Approach:

The project involves committing to environmental justice principles; conducting community-based participatory research; utilizing qualitative research methods, including interviews, thematic coding, and data analysis; engaging with diverse stakeholders and communities; co-producing final deliverables; creating usable and action-oriented recommendations; and creating an innovative toolkit.