Reporting on Ecotopia: Cross-border environmental media in the Salish Sea & Cascadia | The Foundation for WWU & Alumni

Check out this video to watch the Reporting on Ecotopia: Cross-border environmental media in the Salish Sea & Cascadia.

This event is co-hosted by Border Policy Research Institute, Center for Canadian-American Studies, Salish Sea Institute, the Journalism Department, and Salish Sea Communications in partnership with the WWU Alumni Association

This panel forum opens questions about the evolution of media and news venues in our cross-border region. Featuring a slate of outstanding journalists covering environmental issues in our region, we will explore questions like:

How do regional media address transboundary issues, such as the energy economy, political regulation, and climate change policy?
What is the role of media producers and consumers in fostering cross-border conversations around the Salish Sea and more broadly throughout Cascadia?
What is the future of place-based news to address shared crises and solutions in our shared bioregion?

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Jude Isabella, Hakai Magazine

Speaker

Jude Isabella is an award-winning science journalist, concentrating on the environment, ecology, and archaeology. As a journalist for over 30 years, Jude has worked for newspapers and magazines, on staff or as a freelancer. She spent a dozen years as managing editor of YES Mag, Canada's science magazine for kids. In 2015, she launched Hakai Magazine, an online publication focused on coastal science and societies. Jude is the author of Salmon: A Scientific Memoir (RMB). She’s also written six science books for kids. The New York Public Library honored her latest, Bringing Back the Wolves (Kids Can Press), as one of the Best Kids’ Books of 2020.

Lisa Johnson, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Speaker

Lisa Johnson is a producer with CBC Radio's national climate change show, What On Earth, as well as an editor and senior writer for CBC News based in British Columbia. She enjoys making sense of complicated things with a specialty in science, nature, and environment stories. Before she became a storyteller, Lisa graduated from the University of B.C. with an Honours Degree in Biology, which had her pipetting stickleback DNA, counting kelp, and watching fish mating dances. She returned to UBC for her Masters in Journalism, focusing on science and risk communications.

Lynda Mapes, The Seattle Times

Speaker

Lynda V. Mapes is a reporter at the Seattle Times, where she specializes in coverage of the environment. Over the course of her career she has won numerous awards, including the international 2019 and 2012 Kavli gold award for science journalism from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest professional science association. She has written five books, including Elwha, a River Reborn about the largest dam removal project ever in history and the effort to revive a wilderness watershed in Washington’s Olympic National Park, and its once legendary salmon runs. In 2013-14 Lynda was awarded a 9-month Knight fellowship in Science Journalism at MIT. In 2014-15, she was a Bullard Fellow at the Harvard Forest, exploring the human and natural history of a single, 100-year old oak to write Witness Tree, published by the University of Washington Press in 2019. Her forthcoming book on the southern resident orca whales’ struggle to survive will be published by the Seattle Times and Braided River on June 1, 2021. In addition to her staff position as lead environment reporter at the Seattle Times, Lynda is an associate of the Harvard Forest of Harvard University, in Petersham, MA. She was recognized by NOAA Fisheries in 2016 with the prestigious Dr. Nancy Foster Habitat Conservation Award for her reporting on fish and habitat. She lives in Seattle.

Mike Sato, Salish Current

Speaker

Mike Sato is the managing editor of Salish Current, a nonprofit, open access, local news platform serving the communities of Whatcom, San Juan and Skagit counties. He is also the curator of the weekday news blog, Salish Sea News and Weather. He is a graduate of Reed College, Portland, Oregon, and was editor of the Island Record and editor/publisher of the Seattle Sun. He has served as community relations manager for Seattle City Light, information officer for the Puget Sound Water Quality Authority, corporate communications director for Hawaiian Electric Company, and communications director for the advocacy organization People For Puget Sound. He is the author of The Price of Taming a River: The Green-Duwamish Waterways in Decline (Mountaineers Books, 1997). He resides in Bellingham and on Lopez Island.

Derek Moscato

Moderator

Derek Moscato is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism at Western Washington University and a research fellow with WWU’s Border Policy Research Institute. A 2020 Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication Scholar, his research examines the confluence of environmental media, strategic communication, and public diplomacy. His recent projects focus on cross-border media ecosystems in Cascadia, the communication ramifications of the Keystone XL Pipeline in the United States, and the soft power of global sport. Moscato holds a PhD from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication.

Questions and Accommodations

Contact the WWU Alumni Association for this event. Please email alumni@wwu.edu or call (360) 650-3353 if you have any questions.

There will be auto-captions available for this event. To request closed captions, please mark the request on the registration form. Advance notice of three days to one week is appreciated.