RY RIVARD
When I joined SEJ in 2015, I was on a new beat in a new state, covering water in the West. SEJ paired me with a mentor who had already made a career in California. That guidance gave me the confidence to report on the environment.
The Society of Environmental Journalists has a big mission, to strengthen environmental journalism across the board. But it fulfills the mission one person at a time. I’m running for the board so reporters in the future can also turn to SEJ for help and support. I want to make SEJ more accessible to all kinds of reporters and small news organizations.
I began my career in West Virginia covering state politics, which often involved coal and gas, but I didn’t think of myself as an environmental reporter. Having guidance from SEJ then would have helped me and my readers. Now, as climate change transforms beats — turning public safety, business and politics reporters into environmental reporters by circumstance — I want to help people in a similar situation find SEJ, whether they consider themselves environmental reporters or not.
I’ve worked at two nonprofit newsrooms where I learned about what it takes to make a nonprofit, like SEJ, successful. Nonprofits need to have tough and ongoing conversations about diversity. They need active but careful board members. They need people who can talk to donors.
I also want to make sure SEJ represents and serves all kinds of news organizations, particularly the smaller nonprofits that are coming to dominate the local media landscape. I’m currently a reporter at the Adirondack Explorer, a nonprofit magazine and website started two decades ago to report on the six-million-acre Adirondack Park in New York’s North Country. Before this, I worked at Voice of San Diego, an early online nonprofit. There, I covered water and energy. Sometimes, the smallest organizations don’t even know what sort of help is available, and I’d like to change that.
Finally, SEJ provides a chance to advocate on behalf of environmental journalism, which is more important than ever, as fires, floods, droughts and green energy become the story of this century. That means SEJ is also more important than ever, and I’d be honored to work on its behalf and yours.
If you have any questions, please email ry@ryrivard.com. You can also find and message me @ryrivard on Twitter and Instagram.
Photo by Benjamin Chambers.
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