ROCKY KISTNER
Colleagues;
I’ve been a member of SEJ for at least five years, and am an active supporter of the organization today. I’ve been a journalist, producer and reporter for 40 years, working on environmental stories for a wide variety of media outlets, including CBS 60 Minutes, ABC News Day One, PBS Frontline, the San Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Times and Mother Jones magazine, among others. I first started reporting on the environment in the early 80s for the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco, an organization I worked for over a period of more than 10 years.
When the BP Deepwater Horizon exploded in April 2010, NRDC sent me to cover the oil disaster in the Louisiana bayou, where I was embedded in a fishing community for seven months and blogged extensively for The Huffington Post. It changed my life. Since then, I have not forgotten the many fishermen and cleanup workers who continue to suffer health and economic damages from one of the world’s biggest oil spills. I also covered the toxic tar sands oilfields of Alberta, Canada, and traveled along the planned Keystone pipeline route through the breadbasket of America all the way to the Gulf. I met with ranchers, farmers and residents worried about the risks of a pipeline oil disaster. It reinforced my belief that journalists need to be out on the environmental front lines, talking to people directly impacted by environmental assaults and not just the “experts” in Washington, DC.
As a father of two teenage girls, I am deeply concerned about the impacts of climate change and the rapid environmental destruction occurring before our eyes. I believe strongly that journalism is key to helping people and decision-makers understand the realities of the dramatic changes taking place. Unfortunately, as more local newspapers shutdown, we have fewer boots on the ground to do this crucial reporting. I want to work with SEJ board members to find additional resources to support these important local reporting efforts.
Finally, I believe it’s critical to attract more minority participation in environmental journalism. We know minority communities suffer unequal health and economic damages from toxic waste, pollution and climate impacts. We desperately need to support more minority journalists to tell their stories. Social justice is an important reason for many of us to be doing this work, and I will work hard with members of the SEJ board and others to improve our ability to attract a more diverse membership. We are a stronger organization when we are a more diverse organization.
Thank you for your consideration.
William “Rocky” Kistner
www.therockyfiles.com
wfkistner@gmail.com
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