In this presentation at Boston University's College of Communication on March 28, 2013, I discuss my recent Harvard University Shorenstein Center paper on journalists as public intellectuals. In the tradition of Walter Lippmann, these best-selling authors, essayists, columnists, and bloggers specialize in the analysis and translation of complex subjects, often also championing specific policy positions. In doing so, they influence how we think and talk, infusing the abstract with meaning, and turning the complex into a common vocabulary. In my paper and presentation, I focus specifically on journalists writing about climate change, sustainability, and economic growth, evaluating the careers and work of prolific essayist-turned-activist Bill McKibben (author of The End of Nature, Deep Economy), New York Times columnist Tom Friedman (Hot, Flat, and Crowded), and New York Times environmental writer Andrew Revkin (the Dot Earth blog).

1. Visions of a Sustainable Future
Journalists as Public Intellectuals in the Climate Debate
Matthew C. Nisbet
Associate Professor
School of
Communication
American University
Washington D.C.
College of Communication
Boston University 3.28.13
@MCNisbet

2. Evaluating the Media Impact of a Bestseller
Nisbet, M.C. & Fahy, D. (2013) BMC Medical Ethics, 14:10.
ETHICAL THEMES EMPHASIZED IN MEDIA DISCUSSION
Informed Consent
Compensation
Welfare
Progress
Control / Access Minor Emphasis
Accountability Major Emphasis
Privacy
Education
Advocacy N = 125
0 20 40 60 80 100
% of Reviews, Profiles, Features, Interviews & Opinion Articles
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3. Knowledge Journalists as Super Achievers & Outliers
o View world deductively, relating how
specific events or trends can be explained
by theory or grand narrative.
o Rather than straight reporting they
translate complex subjects, specialize in
immersion and synthesis, often
championing specific policy positions or
causes.
o As public intellectuals, they are often “a
social critic rather than merely a social
observer….they are at once engaged
and detached.” – Richard Posner
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4. The Future of Big Ideas Journalism & Storytelling?
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5. Teaching Knowledge-Based Journalism
o Goal is to build use of scientific and
scholarly research more deeply into the
journalism curriculum, where reliance on
research becomes as second nature as
reporting.
o Journalist Resource as curated repository
and aggregation of relevant studies and
research across frequently covered public
affairs topics.
o Can benefit from models and case studies
by which to understand how the super-
achievers among journalists use
research, tell stories, manage their
careers, and impact debates.
@MCNisbet

6. Knowledge Journalists Across Dimensions
Synthesis
Elizabeth Kolbert
Andrew Revkin
Gary Taubes
John Horgan
Malcolm Gladwell Nicholas Carr
Stephen Dubner
Journalist Writer
Tom Friedman Fareed Zakaria David Brooks
Douglas Rushkoff
Michael Pollan
Bill McKibben Naomi Klein
Advocacy
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7. Walter Lippmann as Teacher and Advisor
o Lippmann was motivated to capture uncertainty and
complexity in the world, as well as the
indispensability of the long view.
o Used his books as opportunities to define his
philosophy, and his columns as a means to more
widely convey & apply his views.
o Viewed journalists as expert analysts, guiding
“citizens to a deeper understanding of what was really
important.”
o As teacher, believed “academic theory frequently
needed to be reinterpreted and readjusted to fit
practical political realities.”
o As advisor, wrote knowing that political leaders were
among his readers.
@MCNisbet

8. Veteran Science Journalists as Informed Critics
o Open up the process of expert knowledge
production for their readers, examining how and
why research was done, positing alternative
interpretations, drawing connections to ongoing
debates about a field.
o Sometimes challenge scientific paradigms or the
conclusions of a group of experts.
o Critique coverage by journalists, claims by
bloggers, by advocates and public intellectuals.
@MCNisbet

9. Rachel Carson and the Control of Nature
o Carson was a “relentless reviser,” relying on “a
vast network of experts, scientists, scholars, and
physicians who reviewed and commented on her
work…” – William Souder
o Pesticides were a sign of our grave new
technological hubris, employing vivid imagery to
engage her audiences, evoking images of nuclear
bomb-like devastation. “She wanted us to
understand that we were just a blip. The control of
nature was an arrogant idea…” – Linda Lear
o She “was the first person to take the shine off the
idea of progress, and to make us reconsider
whether all was quite as it seemed,” –
McKibben, 2008
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10. Becoming Outliers and Super Achievers
o Tom Friedman started his career with UPI before becoming
Beirut bureau chief and then Jerusalem bureau chief.
o Before being named a regular New York Times columnist in
1995, he served as the State Department correspondent, the
White House correspondent, and then the International
economics correspondent.
o By the time he had published Hot, Flat, and Crowded in
2008, Friedman had written 1200 columns for the New York
Times, won three Pulitzers, published four previous books
including The World Is Flat, and hosted 6 documentaries
including several on energy and climate change.
@MCNisbet

11. Becoming Outliers and Super Achievers
o Revkin earned his graduate degree in journalism from
Columbia University, worked at Science Digest and Los
Angeles Times before joining Discover magazine in
1987. In 1990, Revkin authored The Burning Season, later
translated into a HBO movie.
o In 1995, he joined the Metro Desk at the New York Times
and five years later became national environment
correspondent. In 2007, he launched the Dot Earth blog
o Filed more than 1200 stories, approx. 300 focusing
primarily on climate change, and has written more than
800 posts at Dot Earth. Among the first NY Times
reporters to use multi-media methods.
@MCNisbet

12. Becoming Outliers and Super Achievers
o McKibben graduated from Harvard in 1982 where
he was President of The Crimson. Worked as a
staff writer at The New Yorker from 1982 to 1987.
o “One of the wonderful things about writing for the
New Yorker was that I was writing anonymously.
I‟d send a piece to Mr. Shawn [his editor] and get
back a galley with a very good set of questions. It
was amazing to discover in a 700-word piece
how many places you‟d been
unclear, imprecise, open to interpretation, and
on and on.”– McKibben 2008
o “It was from [Jonathon Schell] that I learned how
great reporting could produce critical thinking. It
was a liberating reprieve from the twin
straightjackets of „objective reporting‟ and
„punditry‟.” – McKibben 2008
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13. Personalities, Celebrities and Global Commodities
o Merge public and private selves by relating
complex ideas or problems to personal
anecdotes, “journeys,” “realizations.”
o Appearance, headshot, image, and dress
are likely to be consistent with the subject
matter they write about.
o Establish authenticity, commitment to a
topic i.e. “walks the walk,” “practices what
they preach” or has acquired unique
knowledge through exceptional
experiences.
o Most are commodities, in that their
books, writing, and speeches are bound up
with a dense web of
promotion, selling, marketing, and
millions of dollars in transactions.
@MCNisbet

14. Knowledge Journalists Online & Spirals of Attention
o Motivated “issue publics” deep dive
into subject content across
outlets, making knowledge journalism
online participatory and social.
o Articles become most popular, read, or
emailed at news
sites…flagged, highlighted, contextua
lized, and spread by way of
comments, Facebook “like” buttons, and
indicators of how often a story has been
re-tweeted.
o Meta-commentary and reactions from
bloggers and journalists at other news
sites turns article into “pseudo-event.”
@MCNisbet

15. Discourses and Communities of Assumptions
o Knowledge journalists as public intellectuals help create
discourses and “communities of assumptions” that define
problems and policy options.
o By calling attention to specific disciplines and networks of
experts, they help define which experts or views might be
mainstream versus what might be contrarian or out of bounds.
o Once assumptions and legitimate authorities are established, it
becomes “costly in terms of human mental labor to re-examine
what has finally come to be taken for granted.”
o Other public intellectuals are needed to “disturb the canonical
peace” and “defamiliarize the obvious” by identifying the
flaws in conventional wisdom and by offering alternative
renderings of a problem.
@MCNisbet

16. Telling Stories about Wicked Problems
o The more complex a problem like
climate change, the more equally
plausible discourses and
narratives exist about what should
be done.
o Climate change serves as an
opportunity for different groups to
mobilize on behalf of their
values, goals and vision for
society.
o By analyzing discourses “we can at
least recognize that the sources of
our enduring disagreements…lie
within us, in our values and in our
sense of identity and purpose.”
@MCNisbet

17. McKibben as American Romantic
o Wild regions are “frequently likened to Eden itself,” and
viewed as the “one place we can turn for escape from our
own too-muchness.”
o In Nature, “the supernatural lay just beneath the surface,”
enabling people to “glimpse the face of God.” – William
Cronon
o Nature and community become instruments to argue
deeper truths: “A farmers‟ market is a sign of a „quiet
revolution‟ that will change everything. The revolution
concerns an idea – that economic growth and material things
will not make us happy.”– Richard White
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18. McKibben as Deep Ecologist
o Applies metaphor of “overshoot and collapse,” in which
computer models predict that human population
growth, rising consumerism, and resource depletion exceed
the carrying capacity of the planet.
o As consequence, society needs to deprioritize economic
growth, and to instead focus on quality of life.
o Societal transformation will require widespread activism
that challenges status quo. Idealizes a Jeffersonian
agrarian economy comprised of self-reliant
communities.
o Focus is on locally-based “appropriate technologies”
such as solar and wind power. Deeply suspicious of genetic
engineering and nuclear energy.
@MCNisbet

19. Friedman and the Green Growth Perspective
o Limits to growth can be stretched if the right policies and
reforms are adopted. Combines a focus on a “soft path”
approach with a pricing mechanism on carbon.
o For Friedman, the world is a “growth machine” that “no
one can turn off.” Need “Code Green” plan that would
create “abundant, cheap, clean, reliable electrons.”
o Social change happens “by leveraging the greatest
innovation engine God ever created, which is the combination
of American research universities, venture capital, and
the marketplace.”
o “America will have its identity back, not to mention its self-
confidence, because it will again be leading the world on
the most important strategic mission and values issue of the
day.”
@MCNisbet

20. The Green Prometheans
o Question the Romantic ideal of Nature separate from
humans in the Anthropocene. Emphasize both the problem
and the opportunity in mega-cities and urban areas.
o Argue that environmentalists have long suffered from a
technological bias towards “soft path” and pricing
mechanism approaches.
o Instead, need to consider a broader menu of technological
options and the role of government in fostering, including
natural gas drilling; nuclear power; carbon capture and
storage; genetically engineered food, and geo-
engineering.
@MCNisbet

21. Networked Knowledge Journalism
Bridging and Blurring Discourses
o “The idea here is not just to highlight points of
communality and sites for compromise, but also to
provide possibilities for contestation and the
reflection it can induce.”– John Dryzek
o “There is no kumbaya moment. You never get everyone
on the same page,” and you never reach consensus.
“What‟s possible is a world where different stakeholders
„get‟ that the world looks different to people who hold
different stakes.”– Jay Rosen
o “Bringing an end to our ideological arms race will
ultimately require that we force partisans out of their
comfort zone by redefining those problems in ways to
which partisans do not already know the answers.”–
Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus
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22. The Dot Earth Blog
Revkin as Explainer, Informed Critic and Convenor
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23. The Dot Earth Blog
Revkin as Explainer, Informed Critic and Convenor
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24. www.ClimateShiftProject.org
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