People are concerned about climate. People are concerned about energy prices. And I hope that journalism will continue to make environment and energy a primary beat and not neglect it or relegate it to some sort of part-time job. Moreover, environmental journalism is local as much as it is national. I’ve written about general policy most of my time in Washington and to me there’s an awful lot of good environmental journalism that is locally based—in other words, what about that landfill, or what about that power plant? It doesn’t always have to be big picture stuff.

Curtis Brainard is the editor of The Observatory, CJR's online critique of science and environment reporting. Follow him on Twitter @cbrainard.