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Fellow Profile
CHIP GILLER
 Chip Giller is founder and editor of GristMagazine.com, an online environmental publication with the slogan "gloom and doom with a sense of humor." The magazine is a project of the Earth Day Network. Chip and Grist were the top vote-getter in the 2001 Alternet New Media Contest and recently profiled in Utne Reader. Before launching Grist, Chip was editor of Greenwire, an environmental news service based in Washington, D.C. He got his start in environmental journalism at High Country News, a newspaper that reports on Western environmental issues.
What has your journalism experience taught you about the most effective way to promote environmental issues in the public sphere?
Environmental stories challenge reporters because they tend not to be black-and-white and they don't have cut-and-dry endings. Court cases end; elections and legislative efforts have clear winners and losers; train wrecks happen and are over. By contrast, environmental stories -- and I'm stealing these thoughts from others wiser than I -- ooze over time. How many pieces can you write about the decline of a species, or the approach of global warming? How many times can you say that the warmest year in history just occurred, or that biodiversity is plummeting? Stories like these can get pretty dull quickly. And when can one definitively say that global warming is here, or that a species is certain to become extinct? Well, you often can't -- so environmental reporters face an uphill battle trying to convince editors to run stories that don't answer the five traditional Ws -- who, what, where, why, when (and how). A piece about a decision by Ford to replace tires on all Ford Explorers will almost always trump a piece about global warming. But can anyone dispute which event will be of more significance in the long run?
So how can we overcome these challenges?
The best environmental reporters are great storytellers. They often put faces on the problems, begin with individuals and their settings, and then back up to the broader issues at stake. I read a great piece last year in The Washington Post, column-inch after column-inch about alien species. Not normally a sexy topic. But this reporter somehow made it seem as if the battle of the century were upon us (which in some ways it is).
So if you're looking to pitch a story to reporters, give them not just the latest findings but also faces to put on the problems - stories to wrap around the issues.
What were your goals when you launched Grist? What niche do you aim to serve?
The planet faces problems so vast that too often people get overwhelmed by them and tune out. I wanted to create an environmental publication that would engage a large audience and motivate them to take action. The way to do this for Grist, on top of employing good storytelling, was to have an attitude and to use humor in unexpected ways. The vehicle was the Internet -- create something free, funny, and useful that would keep people coming back for more. As our slogan declares, Grist is gloom and doom with a sense of humor.
In our "Do Good" section, we pair our news coverage with opportunities for environmental activism. Two years into this experiment, our daily readers, tens of thousands strong, have proven an active bunch, speaking up on scores of issues. It's a diverse audience, including educators, journalists, politicos, activists, students, and other concerned citizens.
The Internet is only in its infancy, and journalism is being reinvented online. This year, nonprofit web projects like Grist have surged, even as dotcoms have collapsed. I think there is a great potential to use journalism on the web to expand the reach of the environmental movement and advance the environmental cause.
From your perspective working with the media, what should be the key goals for the environmental movement over the next 20 years?
Right now, the press in the U.S. justifiably doesn't think of the environment as a top-tier voter issue. So one goal for the movement should be to expand its electoral base, motivate that base, and build support for significant environmental change. A year into his vice presidency, Gore said about the environment, "The minimum that is scientifically necessary far exceeds the maximum that is politically feasible." Although Clinton and Gore took some modest steps to protect the environment over eight years, they didn't do much to expand political support for the more significant steps that will be required to get us out of the mess we're in. With the new administration, environmentalists have a chance both to preach to the choir and to welcome new converts horrified by Bush's open hostility to environmental concerns. Toss in some weather tragedies (floods, hurricanes, you name it), and environmentalists could find themselves leading a popular charge to take over the White House in four or eight years, with a mandate to act on the most pressing environmental issue of all, global warming.
Longer term, I'd like to think we are headed toward the type of society described by Hawken and the Lovinses in Natural Capitalism - where we have an economy that uses less material and energy; where per-capita spending on social problems has increased, while the problems have grown less severe; and where serious environmental restoration work has begun. Obviously, for that to happen, a lot of groundwork must be laid. For example, I think some in the press and many in the public continue to buy into the argument that environmental protection costs jobs. It's a claim that costs the movement lots of members. Environmentalists need to emphasize how new technologies and economic activities are dynamic job-creators and also can improve quality of life for all.
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Chip Giller, Na'Taki Osborne |
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