Environmental Journalism and Environmental Activism

What do journos think of the revolving door bt environmental journalism/activism? http://t.co/H7VKRY8HhR @revkin @boykoff @yulsman @jfleck
— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) August 28, 2013

With the above Tweet, motivated by Leo Hickman's announcement that he was moving from The Guardian to WWF, I walked into a bit of a Tweet storm this morning.

My colleague here at Colorado, Tom Yulsman replied via Tweet by asking me to provide names of people who had gone through that revolving door, one way or the other. Via a reply I provided him with 4 names of people who have moved between environmental NGOs and professional media. That such a revolving door exists should not be controversial. It does.  Tom however did not like either the question or my examples.

I think it was Tom's follow up tweet -- completely misrepresenting my question -- that got a rise out of a few people:

@rogerpielkejr Let's see what @afreedma @mikelemonick @lmorello_dc say re: yr claim they're activists, not journos @revkin @boykoff @jfleck
— Tom Yulsman (@yulsman) August 28, 2013

Each of the three responded.

Lauren Morello of Nature magazine, formerly of Climate Central, replied with some considerable anger that the question was being asked and that she was given as an example of someone who had moved from an advocacy organization to a news organization:

@RogerPielkeJr @yulsman @afreedma @MikeLemonick @Revkin @boykoff @jfleck Whatever it is you're trying to imply, Roger, I think it's crap.
— Lauren Morello (@lmorello_dc) August 28, 2013

Andrew Freedman, of Climate Central and the Washington Post replied with a more substantive pair of tweets:

@yulsman @RogerPielkeJr @MikeLemonick @lmorello_dc @Revkin @boykoff @jfleck Revolving door is natural, just as policy/lobbying door is.(1/2)
— Andrew Freedman (@afreedma) August 28, 2013

and

@yulsman @RogerPielkeJr @MikeLemonick @lmorello_dc @Revkin @boykoff @jfleck At same time, I don't view myself as an advocate, & never have.
— Andrew Freedman (@afreedma) August 28, 2013

Michael Lemonick of Climate Central replied substantively as well:

@RogerPielkeJr @Revkin @boykoff @yulsman @lmorello_dc @afreedma Journalism to activism, no problem. The reverse doesn't happen often.
— Lemonick (@MLemonick) August 28, 2013

The relationship of science and advocacy is a topic of considerable attention these days, well beyond issues of climate science. Journalists would do well to ask themselves similar questions, which are perfectly fair to be asked.

In journalism, as in science, advocacy is not a dirty word. Our role as advocates (and we all are) should be openly discussed.