Tag Archives: environment

Newsweek: Is BP restricting journalists’ access to oil spill?

More than a month into the disaster, a host of anecdotal evidence is emerging from reporters, photographers, and TV crews in which BP and Coast Guard officials explicitly target members of the media, restricting and denying them access to oil-covered beaches, staging areas for clean-up efforts, and even flyovers.

Journalists from CBS, Mother Jones and the Times Picayune have been denied access to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to reports, raising concerns that the disaster will not be properly documented for the public.

Full story at this link…

Complaint to PCC raises further criticism of Sunday Times’ environment coverage

According to a report in the Guardian yesterday, Simon Lewis, an expert on tropical on forests at the University of Leeds, has filed a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) about an article in the Sunday Times.

The article published on 31 January, which alleged that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had made mistakes in a report on global warming, was “inaccurate, misleading and distorted”, according to Lewis, who says he contacted the newspaper before the story was published and has since written letters and tried to leave comments on the website.

Questions have been raised by several bloggers over the Sunday Times’ environmental coverage – particularly following reports that the title had been banned from receive pre-publication releases from some scientific journals for breaking embargoes.

The article at the heart of Lewis’ complaint and those that resulted in bans for the Sunday Times from PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) and JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) were written by Jonathan Leake, who recently responded on blog Embargo Watch, saying he was unconcerned about the bans:

As you can see, these press officers have claimed they have banned us from their embargo system but this is rather misleading because we have a policy of not signing up to these embargo systems. Since we are not part of them we can hardly be banned. The press officers in question do know our position and I would suggest their statements are knowingly misleading.

Fitz & Jen: US Print Council defends newspapers with environmental campaign

A new white paper from US industry body, The Print Council, entitled ‘Why Print is Green’ will be released next month and will raise awareness ‘regarding the environmentally responsible nature of print’.

(Similar environmentally-friendly qualities were praised at this year’s FIPP world magazine congress.)

The council has emphasised the US print industry’s use of renewable energy sources and (also raised at FIPP):

“The average person’s paper use for a year – 440 pounds – is produced by 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity, the amount used to power one computer continuously for five months.”

Full post at this link…

‘Ecoforyou is aiming to be a 100% carbon neutral publication’

The planned launch of a new ethical environmental online magazine was announced today.

Ecoforyou.co.uk will be free to readers offering environmental news, features, interviews and lifestyle tips. The interactive site will include live-links, video, audio and a ‘digital page turn format’, powered by YUDU and hosted by Planet Ink Ltd.

Without a print edition, ecoforyou is aiming to be a ‘100% carbon neutral publication’. The platform, YUDU, advertises itself as a carbon neutral company, off-setting its emissions by donating money to a carbon management company.

The site is relying on marketing through social networks with readers encouraged to use ‘forward to a friend’ buttons.

“We hope that ecoforyou will not only appeal to individual readers but businesses campaigners and industry leaders too,” said founding director, Gerry Cassidy, in a press release.

“They can easily email ecoforyou to their clients, colleagues and workforce and maintain their green credentials, without having to go to the additional expense of their publication.”

Ecoforyou will is not the only digital offering promoting green issues, the BBC already has a well established site, bbc.green.com.

Other eco websites include:

http://www.bbcgreen.com – lifestyle green living.

http://www.ecorazzi.com/ – offers a mixture of celebrity gossip and environmental issues.

http://www.treehugger.com/ – ‘strives to be a one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information.’

http://www.ecogeek.org/ – publishes stories daily about innovations that are saving the planet.

Any other favourite green news sites?