New York Times Dismantles Its Environment Desk

[wtmusic]

"The New York Times will close its environment desk in the next few weeks and assign its seven reporters and two editors to other departments. The positions of environment editor and deputy environment editor are being eliminated. No decision has been made about the fate of the Green Blog, which is edited from the environment desk.

'It wasn't a decision we made lightly,' said Dean Baquet, the paper's managing editor for news operations. 'To both me and Jill (Abramson, executive editor), coverage of the environment is what separates the New York Times from other papers. We devote a lot of resources to it, now more than ever. We have not lost any desire for environmental coverage. This is purely a structural matter.'

<>

News that the New York Times is closing its environmental desk comes just a week after The Daily Climate reported that worldwide coverage of climate change continued a three-year slide in 2012—and that among the five largest U.S. dailies, the Times published the most stories and had the biggest increase in coverage. Times assistant managing editor Glenn Kramon told The Daily Climate that 'climate change is one of the few subjects so important that we need to be oblivious to cycles and just cover it as hard as we can all the time.'"

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130111/new-york-times-dismantles-environmental-desk-journalism-fracking-climate-change-science-global-warming-economy

If you read NYT's Green Blog and appreciate its reliable and no-nonsense reporting, email NYT and let them know before it too goes extinct.

[e-mail]

[hunter]

1. Welcome to the future where all the big news is about the environment...

... but nobody wants to talk about it.

New York Times headlines today:

Sales of Guns Soar in U.S. as Nation Weighs Tougher Limits

New York City Ties Doctors’ Income to Quality of Care

A Trail of Bullet Casings Leads From Africa’s Wars Back to Iran

France Battling Islamists in Mali

Veterans and Senate Buddies, Until Another War Split Them

Drivers With Hands Full Get a Backup: The Car

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html

[wtmusic]

2. In fairness, NYT is still the best daily newspaper in the country

This decision really surprises me, and I think they will get a lot of negative feedback.

[libinnyandia]

3. I subscribed to the NYT for 20 years when I lived in NYC. The local paper

where I live now is right-wing and isn't worth the paper its printed on.

[joshcryer]

4. More of the same. Was disappointed with greenman's "2012:The Year Climate Change Got Real" video.

Wanted to tell 'em on his channel he was wrong in so many ways.

Climate change has always been real but the media won't cover it and BAU will be par for the course.

[wtmusic]

5. What he meant was climate change got real in people's minds

There's an epiphany of sorts, when one sees one's house floating away, that it's no longer BAU.

[joshcryer]

6. I know, but where are the people demanding action?

They're a minority, imo.