New York Times science reporter Andrew Revkin will deliver a talk titled "The Daily Planet: Why the Media Stumble Over the Environment" on Thursday, Oct. 17, at 2 p.m. in the auditorium of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences on the CU-Boulder campus.
The auditorium is located in room 338 of the CIRES building. The talk is free and open to the public and is presented as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series sponsored by CIRES.
"The problem with media coverage of the environment is the fundamental disconnect between environment and news," Revkin said. "News is something that's different today than yesterday. A war starts. An earthquake strikes.
"Environmental issues -- at least the most profound ones -- are generally the antithesis of news," he said. "They are subtle, slow-moving, complicated shifts that often hide in plain sight."
A New York Times reporter since 1995 covering environmental issues in their social and political contexts, Revkin was part of the team contributing to "Nation Challenged," which was awarded a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for public service. Revkin has also won the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award and an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award.
Before joining the Times, Revkin spent five years writing books. His first, "The Burning Season" chronicled the life of Chico Mendes, the slain Amazon rain forest activist. The book won the Sidney Hillman Foundation Book Prize and a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, was published in nine languages and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. It served as the basis for the HBO film of the same name, which won two Golden Globes and two Emmys.
Revkin has worked as the senior editor of Discover, as a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and as senior writer at Science Digest. He has written for the New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler and other magazines.
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