Meera Subramanian Archives - Knight Science Journalism @MIT

by Knight Science Journalism / May 19th 2023 / Alumni News

Alumni Notes: A Former Fellow’s Initiative Opens New Journalism ‘Frontiers’

Since it was founded in Milan seven years ago, the non-profit Center for Ethics in Science and Journalism has sought to foster “better science and better journalism for a healthier democracy.” Now the center, led by former KSJ Fellow Fabio Turone (‘17) will be helping to deploy journalists to many of Europe’s top universities. The center is part of a consortium that won a 1.5 million euro grant from the European Research Council to establish science journalists in residence at research institutions across the continent.

Over the next four years, the project — called FRONTIERS (Fellowship Residencies Offering science News professionals Tools and training for Independent and Ethical Reporting on Science) — is expected to provide 40 fellowships to early-career, mid-career, and established science journalists, giving them the opportunity to spend 3 to 5 months as journalists in residence at institutions of their choice.

“This is the first EU-funded project specifically aimed at supporting independent science journalism,” Turone said in a press release. “We hope that it will demonstrate how institutional support can change the landscape of science journalism in Europe by promoting capacity building and lifelong learning opportunities for the many professionals who aim for the highest qualitative and ethical standards.”

KSJ will be well-represented in the FRONTIERS project. In addition to Turone, former fellows Mićo Tatalović (’18) and Andrada Fiscutean (’20) — and current fellow Wojtek Breszinski — serve on the project’s advisory board.

Among the fare in the New Yorker’s latest special issue on climate, “Bottlenecks,” were features by former KSJ Fellows Pagan Kennedy (‘11), who wrote about a curious potential solution to the problem of cargo vessel emissions, and Meera Subramanian (‘17), who did a deep dive on India’s Pavagada Ultra Mega Solar Park, the world’s third-largest solar farm.

The park “covers a staggering 13,000 acres in southern India,” Subramanian said of the engineering feat that formed the subject of her reporting. “What does that mean for the local people and the land they once farmed on?” The award-winning environmental journalist went to India to find out, and while she was there, she also traveled to Nepal on a National Geographic Explorer grant to report on vulture conservation efforts.

Meanwhile, Subramanian continues her work as a contributing editor of Orion, where she has a column called Off the Map, and as co-director of the Religion & Environment Story Project, which just finished up with its second round of journalism fellows.

Tasmiha Khan (‘22) has been named to receive one of the five reporting grants awarded this year by the Columbia Journalism School’s Lipman Center as part of its Initiative in Reporting on Race and Criminal Justice. Also among the recipients were the California Newsroom, Mother Jones, AL.com, and independent journalists Daniel Moritz-Rabson and Lauren Gill. The Lipman Center grants total $180,000, and are designed to support year-long reporting projects on law enforcement, prosecutorial, judicial, incarceration, racial, and human rights abuses.

In April, KFF Health News’ Tony Leys (‘20) published a deeply reported feature story on the challenges that adults with Down Syndrome face as they navigate the health system. The story was years in the making, stemming from a project Leys began as a KSJ fellow in 2020. “I shelved the whole thing for a couple of years, while focusing on COVID coverage,” he said. “But I went back after it this year, with fresh angles and interviews for KFF Health News.”

Leys says he’s hoping to follow up with a related story about efforts to include people with disabilities in clinical trials.

And now, a compendium of what other KSJ alumni are writing:

Rebecca Boyle (‘22): “The Death of the Moth Would Be Just Fine By Me, Thanks,” The Last Word on Nothing.

Jeremy Hance (‘22): “World’s ‘largest’ tropical reforestation project slowed by Covid, Bolsonaro, fires,” Mongabay.

Emily Mullin (‘22): “The Secrets of Aging Are Hidden in Your Ovaries,” Wired.

Jared Whitlock (‘22): “Families raised millions and handed rare disease therapies off to biotechs. But companies have backed out,” Endpoints News.

Carrie Arnold (‘21): “‘Patients are not hot potatoes’: How the fight over dialysis coverage is putting kidney failure patients at risk,” STAT.

Sarah Gilman (’21): “On Winthrop Pond, Part I and Part II,” The Last Word on Nothing.

Amy Maxmen (‘21): “These 7 radical changes would fortify the U.S. against the next pandemic,” The Washington Post.

Bethany Brookshire (’20): “NYC’s Rat Czar Needs Much More Than ‘Killer Instinct’ to Succeed,” Slate.

Teresa Carr (‘18): “Will New FDA Rules Help Dial Back Expedited Drugs?” Undark.

Federico Kukso (’16): “Los titanosaurios invaden el mundo,” Agencia SINC (in Spanish).

Rod McCullom (‘16): “Why Some Mass Shootings — And Their Victims — Go Uncounted,” Undark.

Kathleen McLaughlin (‘15): “The Giants of Local Journalism Are Not Being Replaced,” The Nation.

Julia Belluz (‘14): “The pregnancy risks of Ozempic and Wegovy need more attention,” Vox.

Dan Falk (‘12): “The Complicated Legacy of Herbert Spencer, the Man Who Coined ‘Survival of the Fittest,’” Smithsonian Magazine.

Chris Mooney (‘10): “Seas have drastically risen along southern U.S. coast in past decade,” The Washington Post.

Sabin Russell (‘09): “Peripheral neuropathy: When having no pain is a big problem,” Fred Hutch News Service.

Valeria Román (’05): “La historia de una especie de tiburón en peligro crítico en el Mar Argentino,” Infobae (in Spanish).

Annalee Newitz (‘03): “Ben Franklin Would Have Loved Bluesky,” The Atlantic.

Barbara Moran (‘02): “Study: Toxic contamination at Joint Base Cape Cod could persist for centuries,” WBUR.

Vivien Marx (‘98): “Tuning in to epigenetic cross-talk,” Nature Methods.

Lori Valigra (’93): “A nonprofit’s quest to buy Maine newspaper empire began a year ago,” Bangor Daily News (subscription required).

by Anna Blaustein / November 20th 2020 / Alumni News

How Environmental Journalism Is Surviving — and Thriving — in an Unstable World

When Meera Subramanian became President of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Board of Directors last year, she did so at a pivotal moment for environmental journalism — and for the journalism industry at large. Just months into her tenure, a novel coronavirus began spreading quietly around the world. By April, pandemic-driven layoffs were devastating the journalism industry. Then, record-setting wildfires ravaged the American West throughout the summer and fall. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continued its aggressive rollbacks of environmental regulations and formally left the Paris Climate Agreement, abandoning a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. All of this played out against the backdrop of a heated presidential election, one poised to influence U.S. environmental policy for years to come.

But Subramanian and her colleagues at the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) have been working to rise to the moment. She recently spoke with me about the work SEJ is doing to support its members during a time of turmoil, the group’s efforts to foster a more diverse journalism workforce, and the challenges that lie ahead for environmental journalism. (The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Anna Blaustein: The economic fallout of the pandemic hit the journalism community especially hard this year. How has SEJ been supporting environmental journalists during this challenging time?

Meera Subramanian: We have a really strong program, the Fund for Environmental Journalism, that’s been around for ten years and gives grants to reporters to go out and do stories they might not otherwise be able to do. Those grants, they’re the seed money right when many journalists need it.

When the pandemic hit, we quickly pivoted [from funding travel] to [providing] rapid response grants. Instead of having a deadline and an annual cycle, we just said, “Apply for money if you need it. We’ll get it to you even if it’s not for the usual field reporting and you just need it to work on the story from wherever you’re safe.” We totally reconfigured the program in really short order, and we gave priority to stories that were either about or by underrepresented communities. This year, the Fund has distributed $180,000.

Meera Subramanian, taking a break during a reporting trip in the United Arab Emirates. Photocredit: Simon Thomsett.

AB: What is SEJ doing to foster diversity and inclusion in the organization and in environmental journalism more broadly?

MS: As the daughter of an immigrant and as a woman, I was very interested in diversity issues. There’s a possibility for people in my position to be frustrated or to feel like you’re just getting so much pushback that you just can’t fight anymore. I totally understand that, but my hope is always that if there’s frustration, stay there. Stay at the table, stay in the room. Try to just keep making the changes by being present because as soon as you walk out of the room, nothing changes.

We’re in the final month or two of working on the strategic plan for the next few years. We have a strong component of focusing on diversity and equity and inclusion within the organization, which has traditionally been very white. How do we foster a new generation of environmental journalists that [doesn’t] look like the last generation? How do we bring people into this field? How do we make sure that the stories are being told both about and by people from communities that are often not being heard? Those are questions that haven’t been asked enough historically. Most everyone in this country is reckoning with that.

When we say we want to foster diversity, equity, [and] inclusion, that looks like getting money and resources to journalists so that they can do their work. We waive fees for people who are coming from affinity journalism groups like the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists so there’s more accessibility to be able to enter the awards and funding cycles.

AB: How has the Trump administration’s environmental policy affected environmental journalism?

MS: There’s a bottomless well of stories to be covering in terms of the unprecedented number of rollbacks. In that way, it’s made it a growth industry! But, at the same time there’s so much noise around politics that it’s very challenging to get [those] stories in front of readers. We talk about environmental stories sometimes being considered slow burn stories, things like climate change that evolve over a long period of time. Those stories are really hard for humans to wrap their heads around. Getting those stories in front of readers when there’s the latest Twitter explosion happening can be really challenging for a lot of science writers these days. There’s more than ever to be reporting on, but there’s also so much noise that it’s that much harder to get people to spend time with the stories.

In an even deeper sense, the emotional toll of being on the environmental beat right now [is significant]. There’s a lot of trauma covering wildfire after wildfire, flooding evacuations, covering species extinction. There are some really emotionally challenging stories. Journalists are always balancing coverage of the tough stories that the public needs to know about with feel-good stories about solutions and optimism and hope. That’s something I think environmental journalists face on a day-to-day basis.

That said, already there is so much happening on a state and local and regional level: governments deciding to move forward with Paris commitments, businesses disregarding [environmental] rollbacks because they want more fuel efficiency and consistency around vehicles. There is other work happening on all these different levels. Those are all stories.

AB: What do you see as the future of environmental journalism?

MS: My belief is that [journalism] will never again be a stable field. It will just continue to change and morph. Year after year, every time we think we’ve gotten used to the new normal, it’s going to change again.

We live in an unstable world. I think technology has a huge role in that and will continue to change how people get their information. Who do you trust? What are dependable resources? Where are people getting trusted information, where are they not, and how do you make that distinction? All of those are big questions that not just environmental journalism but journalism writ large are going to be facing for a really long time, and I hope SEJ can continue to be a positive force that helps keep the public informed about the world we live in.

by Greta Friar / December 6th 2016 / KSJ News & Events

Author, Author, Author: Three Books From KSJ

From left, Meera Subramanian, Maura O’Connor, and Mark Wolverton spoke to KSJ classmates about the joys and perils of writing and publishing. (Photos: Fabio Turone, left; Meera Subramanian, center and right.)

“I never thought that I would be in competition with Bill Clinton,” said Mark Wolverton, a current Knight Science Journalism Fellow. He was referring to how his second book, The Depths of Space: The Pioneer Planetary Probes, was published in the same month as the former president’s autobiography, My Life, in 2004. It was one of the many unexpected challenges confronted by the book authors in this year’s class.

The three authors — Wolverton, Meera Subramanian, and Maura O’Connor — shared their experiences of writing and selling their books with the rest of the fellows in the comfort of the conference room on the dark, rainy afternoon of November 15.

The authors gave practical advice about writing a book proposal, finding the right agent, and paying for travel and research, among other topics. Subramanian showed a step-by-step slide presentation called “Anatomy of a first book deal (and how to survive while actually writing the book).”

But along with giving specific tips, such as looking at the acknowledgments pages of books you admire to find agents and editors who might be a good fit, the authors tackled the issue of — as Wolverton put it, adding a choice expletive — “Why do you write a book in the first place?”

All three KSJ authors emphasized that writing a book could be a painful process — as could trying to sell it — and that there were no guarantees of fame and fortune. Most authors will never earn out their advances, let alone get large royalty checks or hit the top of the best-sellers list.

So why bother?

Subramanian knew she was ready to write a book when, after struggling for years with a difficult book proposal that she could not quite make work, she was inspired by a new idea and came up with a complete proposal in three weeks. She said the idea that became a published book felt different. The narrative arc came easily and the idea was something that wouldn’t let go of her. To get through the slog of finishing a book, the writer needed to be captivated by the topic, to feel “even straight-up obsession,” she said. The result was A River Runs Again: India’s Natural World in Crisis, From the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka (2015), which features five stories of sustainability efforts in India.

As a career journalist, O’Connor knew that not every assignment she got was going to excite her. “The best reason to write a book is that it is intellectually satisfying,” she said, adding that the size of the advance and the size of the audience aren’t important. “Does this make me happy?” she asked. “If yes, do it.” O’Connor’s first book, Resurrection Science: Conservation, De-extinction, and the Precarious Future of Wild Things (2015), discusses the complexities and contradictions of wildlife conservation, as well as the possibility of reviving extinct species.

Wolverton described a different type of satisfaction. “I’m sure all of us remember the first time we published something, but that’s not the same as having something you can hold,” he said. A book felt more permanent than an article, more lasting. “There will be times when you hate the stupid thing,” he said, but “after all the agony, you get to walk into a bookstore and see this.” And he showed a picture of a tall stack of copies of his third book, A Life in Twilight: The Final Years of J. Robert Oppenheimer, in a bookstore, waiting to be sold. His expression as he looked at the photo was clear: All of the bad writing days, the arduous negotiations, and the unexpected challenges had been worth the joy of picking up his work from a bookstore table and holding it in his hand.