Is environmental journalism endangered?

As news organizations across the country suffer layoffs and pay cuts, and their corporate stock prices sink, industry insiders fear that environmental journalism is becoming an endangered species. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted a panel on the future of science and environmental journalism last week, featuring four speakers: Mother Nature Network columnist Peter Dykstra, Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein, J-Lab Director Jan Schaffer and National Public Radio correspondent Elizabeth Shogren. About a year ago, Borenstein told a reporter at the Columbia Journalism Review that, despite a Harvard report stating otherwise, he did not think environmental journalism was in trouble. The story never ran, and Borenstein is glad - about three months ago, he talked to the reporter and rescinded his statements. In one week, three of his science and environmental reporting friends were laid off. For many of his colleagues, the situation is just as real: the Los Angeles Times' Washington Bureau, where Shogren began her environmental work, lost reporters and was merged into parent Tribune Co.'s Washington bureau. Dykstra was laid off in December, after 17 years with CNN. He is a consultant at the Wilson Center. "It's just a little sign of what's happening across the industry," Shogren said...Scripps-Howard