Creative Commons License

The Connecticut Mirror has been selected, along with nine other New England news organizations, for the Climate Ready Newsrooms fellowship for local journalism through the University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute. The program began this week with the first in a series of collaborative workshop sessions.

The fellowship seeks to support whole newsrooms — rather than focusing on individual reporters — in reporting on the science of climate and environmental change. It will provide training and resources for producing “long-term, accurate, equitable, and impactful coverage” for the communities served by each newsroom, according to an announcement.

“The communities we cover have already experienced climate-related events, and that’s not going away. This fellowship is an excellent opportunity to better understand what our audience needs and make that information accessible,” said CT Mirror Executive Editor Elizabeth Hamilton.

The institute, based in the URI College of the Environment and Life Sciences, is a collaborative endeavor between higher education, government, nonprofit, business and community leaders and newsrooms to “improve and expand news coverage of environmental topics.”

This year’s cohort is the Metcalf Institute’s second, and includes newsrooms ranging in size, representing all six states in New England. The participating newsrooms are:

This fall, participating journalists will engage in training sessions. Early next year, Metcalf Institute leaders will coach the newsrooms through a project they develop and implement.

John Moritz, CT Mirror’s energy and environment reporter, led the effort to apply for the fellowship. “This is an opportunity for everyone at the CT Mirror — regardless of our individual beats — to explore how climate is impacting the people and topics we cover,” he said. “In addition, Metcalf’s collaborative sessions will allow us to meet with skilled reporters in other newsrooms to learn how they are approaching climate-related stories around New England.”

As manager of audience engagement, Gabby is responsible for CT Mirror’s digital growth. She manages our website, newsletters, search engine optimization, CT Mirror Explains product, on-site marketing, social media channels and internal data analysis. Gabby previously worked as a reporter on Patch.com’s Connecticut team and as an associate editor at The Woonsocket Call in Rhode Island. She is a Connecticut native who holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from UConn and is pursuing a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.