All Climate Change Reporting is Local
CBS News correspondent and 2021 duPont winner David Schechter visited the J-School for this week’s climate change conference and spoke to us about why climate stories are local stories.
David Schechter giving his speech at the September, 2023 Covering Climate Now conference at Columbia Journalism School. Credit: Lisa Cohen
National Environmental correspondent David Schechter has been busy since his duPont win in 2021.
Just back from Norway for his new program On the Dot with CBS News, we caught up with him yesterday at the Covering Climate Now conference here at Columbia Journalism School, where he gave a speech about how local news can cover climate change.
“Local news is the most trusted form of news, and it’s the most prevalent form of news, and it’s the form of news that’s not giving you stories about climate change,” said Schechter.
Schechter co-founded the CBS E-Team, which trains local reporters, meteorologists and news managers to start climate reporting and give them “enough confidence to do the job.”
“A lot of [local reporters] are just afraid…of being harassed,” said Schechter. “News managers are afraid of somehow getting it wrong because they don’t have enough understanding of the subject matter.”
“And then the general managers who run the TV stations are afraid that they’re going to lose audience because they’re going to somehow turn them off if they start reporting on climate change,” Schechter said.
Schechter said that he tells local reporters that these negative comments — which he himself has felt the sting of on social media — are from a small minority of people.
Schechter also said that local reporting of climate change is important because its impacts are local. He said: “Sea level rise in New York City is a local, New York problem. Or not being able to ice skate in Minnesota in the winter, because it didn’t get cold enough to freeze, is a local problem.”
“Climate change is a local story,” said Schechter.
David Schechter and his team visit an Alaskan glacier for their WFAA duPont-winning documentary episode of Verify Road Trip
Schechter traveled to the Climate Now conference from Svalbard, Norway, which is the fastest-melting place in the world. His reporting there will be part of a longform documentary and a collaboration with local CBS stations to produce five other pieces.
Despite winning a duPont in 2021, this was Schechter’s first visit to the J-School, since that duPont ceremony was virtual.
Schechter attributes his sustained confidence in reporting on climate change, in part, to winning the duPont for his series Verify Road Trip with WFAA-TV Dallas.
“I feel like to some extent, duPont took a little bit of a chance on what we were doing because…nothing about what we did was conventional,” Schechter said. Not to mention, he said, that the award also helped him get his network job at CBS!
“That award was just very important in my life, and I’m really grateful to have one, and the doors that it has opened for me and my [producing] partner [Chance Horner] have been really special,” said Schechter.
You can watch the duPont-winning Verify Road Trip episode here.