Why the Planet Needs a Free Press

By Joel Simon
Published in On Earth, Winter 2009

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev seems to have recast himself as Russia’s Al Gore. In October, at a conference in Venice organized by his World Political Forum, he implored the journalists present to do a better job of reporting on climate change. “We need people to know where we are, and where the world ends,” he warned. Roughly translated: if the apocalypse is coming, give us the information we need to prevent it.

The journalists pushed back. We pointed out that it’s tough to engage the public on climate change in the midst of the world financial crisis and that covering the story is complex and expensive…

Read the full article at On Earth.