Jeff Goodell, contributing editor at Rolling Stone Magazine and author of Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future, isn’t very impressed with the way professional journalists cover the environment, but does think citizen journalism can save the environment. Listen to this five-minute video interview conducted by Leonard Witt at the Society of Environmental Journalists convention which ended yesterday, October 19, 2008.
As you might know, the Harnisch Foundation under the direction of Ruth Ann Harnisch gave us a substantial gift to start the Center for for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University. We are up and running. Keep abreast of what is happening at SustainableJournalism.org 
Leonard Witt is the Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication at Kennesaw State University and the chief blogger of PJNet. His academic interests include public and citizen journalism and how to get citizens' voices heard. He has spent most of his professional career as an award-winning journalist.
October 20th, 2008 at 7:05 am
This interview itself is a great example of what Goodell discusses. True, it is conducted by a former journalist and a current journalism academic. But it could have been done by anyone equipped with a simple flip camera and access to this conference. A good example of untrained citizens interviewing untrained citizens to bring fresh light to an environmental issue is on our site at http://greatlakeswiki.org/index.php/The_future_of_Pine_River See the video interview of the Bushwhacker Canoe Challenge.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:53 pm
I like the language about “re-inventing our energy system”
Great interview.
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:14 am
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December 3rd, 2008 at 10:57 am
Since reading Big Coal two years ago, I have been internalizing Goodell’s ideas that ‘reinventing’ the energy industry is the prime hope for our future- as a people and as a world.
I would like to find some more directed/concrete ‘pathways’ to act upon this information and help carry the ideas forward.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:22 am
neighBORROW is a “green” web-based start-up that facilitates the
borrowing and lending things among neighbors or other groups. neighBORROW
combines the traditional notion of borrowing a cup of sugar from a neighbor
with modern technology, using the Internet to facilitate borrowing and lending of
nearly anything among people in local networks. The website, currently in pBETA, uses
accountability metrics such as deposits, user reputations and borrowing history and customizable
privacy settings to help ensure the safety of its members’ property. Users have the flexibility to
decide what and with whom they are willing to share by participating in private and public networks.
These “neighBORROW-hoods,” have been created in apartment buildings, dormitories, offices, and other
natural localities, and have been used to pool and catalog extensive online inventories of CDs, DVDs,
video games, books, tools, sporting equipment, baby items and many other durable goods.