Letter from the Editor: SEJournal Goes Digital
For many of us, the arrival in our mail- boxes of the quarterly SEJournal has been a treasured token of our membership in the SEJ. It lands like a postcard from a friend, a physical reminder that someone is think- ing of us — even if just as a fellow profes- sional offering a new way to approach a story or think about our work, a handy tool, a smart tip, maybe just a sense of cama- raderie for our often-beleaguered environ- ment beat. But in these days of increasingly vir- tual work and life, postcards have largely been replaced by emails and tweets, by the beeps and bleeps of our mobile alerts, the flashes of our Facetimes and Skypes, the flit of our web scans. It’s the direction of our professional — and personal — lives. So last fall, when members of an SEJ Publications 3.0 Task Force surveyed members about their information prefer- ences, we were only mildly surprised by the results.
SEJers not only told us the type of in- formation they most prized — environmen- tal journalism best practices, backgrounders on emerging issues, alerts about important news, story ideas and source leads, and the like. You also told us the manner in which you wanted this mate- rial delivered — overwhelmingly, you wanted it in more timely fashion and in dig- ital form. In response, the Task Force began a serious rethink of what SEJ’s publications
should do and how they should do it. After more than nine months of deliberations, we hashed out a plan with the executive direc- tor, who brought our recommendations to the Board of Directors for endorsement at its most recent meeting in July. Now, that new publications plan is being put in place, and you’ll see the changes starting later this fall. First and foremost, we’ll get the infor- mation to you much faster. How? We’re moving the SEJournal online! We’ll be pro- ducing a new SEJournal weekly e-newslet- ter that will continue the same high-quality news and features you’ve been getting in the print publication, only with a vastly shorter time from pen to (web) publication and in a way that’s easier to search, find, bookmark and share. Of equal importance, we’ll provide
you much more of that information — in fact, several times more. Plus, the weekly e-newsletter will include TipSheet items with story ideas and source leads, Freedom of Information WatchDog coverage and issue backgrounders. You’ll also continue to receive the popular EJToday, SEJ’s daily news digest, curated by Joe Davis. And you won’t want to miss out on @SEJorg Twitter feed and SEJ’s Facebook page and group. All this from the same amazingly talented and dedicated team of editors working to- gether to bring this all to you. What will happen to the treasured print SEJournal? No, it’s not going away. It’s got
adopt a single topic for each issue so we can find enough funding support and sell enough advertising to pay staff and costs. (See side- bar above.) The SEJournal editor will oversee this new publications strategy. We hope you like it. Let us know. As Beth prepares to depart from her leadership role, SEJ is for- tunate to have her team still working hard for us. Chris Bruggers and Jay Letto have each been with SEJ for more than 20 years. And Lisa Cosgriff and Cindy MacDonald are also veteran hardworking staffers who remain there for us, as are editorial staffers Adam Glenn and Joe Davis. We continue to be so grateful to them. My term as your board president ends during the September SEJ conference. I’m so grateful to all of you for the chance to serve this wonderful institution. I trust you’ll give our new president all the support you’ve given me these last two years. Thank you.
Jeff Burnside, most recently a senior investigative reporter with KOMO television in Seattle, has been awarded several working fel- lowships and is the recipient of more than 20 journalism awards. He has served on the SEJ board for eight years.
5 SEJournal Fall 2016
too much cherished history for us to give it up so easily. Instead, we hope it will take on a new life in a new form that takes advantage of the distinctive strengths of a quarterly magazine — evergreen information, hand- some format. We’re re-imagining the print SEJournal as a topically focused issue wor- thy of keeping as a reference work, and pub- lished as (or almost as) regularly. To maintain the strongest possible news value for this kind of a publication, a newly formed Editorial Advisory Board will develop a list of important environmental topics worthy of in-depth coverage. Then, we’ll work with the executive director, staff and SEJ’s wonderful volunteers to find the funding from grants, ads and other sources to support it. In the end, these changes mean you will see much more information much faster to help you do your work better, via e- newsletters, the web and print. We hope SE- Journal arriving in your electronic mailbox in its new form will continue to be a steady reminder from its devoted editors and many, many contributors that we’re think- ing of you. So, (postcard-style) greetings from
the new SEJournal, aloha and wish you were here!
Adam Glenn has been SEJournal editor since 2012, after previously serving in the 1990s as its features editor and co-editor.
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