WE ARE making two significant changes to the Climate News Network over the next few weeks, and we want you to know about them before they happen, and also why they are happening.
First, we are going to give more time and space to our mentoring work. This is designed specifically to be useful to journalists covering climate change, energy and related subjects, but it should work as well for everyone who wants to communicate facts objectively – scientists, for example. The changes mean we shall soon be providing:
– a redesigned and expanded Training section (linked from our Home page), including how-to guides on writing for readers without an expert scientific background
– a weekly feature analysing and explaining how we choose and write news stories, select images, provide context and interpret what we report
– online mentoring for individuals and groups (please contact us if you want to arrange this)
– face-to-face training workshops at a place of your choice (we have to cover our expenses for these events).
The second change affects the frequency of our publication. Since we began the Network in 2013 we have tried to publish a daily news story, and with few interruptions we’ve managed it. We’ve been able to do this thanks to the support of our funders, which has let us pay modest fees to freelance writers and editors. But that funding is now finished. Some of you generously support us through Patreon, and that help is invaluable. But our income now is very small, leaving the original founder editors to keep the Network going for as long as we can.
So we shall go on trying to maintain the daily news service, but there’ll probably be times when no-one is available to write or edit a story, and we hope you will understand our absences, which will be as short and as few as we can manage!
We are continuing to seek new funding, and we hope you will tell your friends about the Network, so that they will use it – and perhaps help to fund it as well.
Thank you for your support of the Network, which continues to grow. Our global reach is now in the tens of millions, and we believe the need for what we’re providing – objective reporting of the facts of climate change – is as great as ever. We look forward to working with you to achieve this for a long time ahead.
The editors
