Panel to consider media’s coverage of California’s environmental policy

The perceptions and realities of California environmental policy and its coverage in the media, — especially during the Trump presidency — will be the focus of a panel discussion titled “Climate Change and Justice in the Trump Era” on Tuesday, Jan. 30.

The panel will include three reporters, who will visit Yale as Poynter Fellows in Journalism. The discussion, co-sponsored by Environmental Justice at Yale, will take place at Kroon Hall’s Burke Auditorium at 195 Prospect St., at noon. The event is free and open to the public.

The panelists will be Stuart Leavenworth, national correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers; Tony Barboza, environment reporter at the Los Angeles Times; and Debra Kahn, West Coast reporter for E&E News.

Leavenworth is based at McClatchy’s Washington, D.C. bureau, where he focuses on issues that matter to western readers — including public lands, the environment, energy, Asia, and security. From 2014 to 2016, Leavenworth was McClatchy’s Beijing bureau chief, where he covered news in China and reported on Myanmar, Mongolia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and other countries. Before he joined McClatchy, he worked at the Sacramento Bee for 14 years. He started his journalism career in 1984 at the Asahi Evening News in Tokyo.

Barboza covers air quality and the environment for the Los Angeles Times. He focuses on Southern California. Barboza has been a staff writer at the LA Times since 2006. He attended Pomona College and completed a Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado.

Kahn covers the West Coast for E&E News, a subscriber-based news organization focusing on energy and the environment. Kahn is based in San Francisco, reports on California energy and environmental policy. She graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Maryland.

The Poynter Fellowship in Journalism was established by Nelson Poynter, who received his master’s degree in 1927 from Yale. The fellowship brings to campus journalists from a wide variety of outlets who have made significant contributions to their field. Among recent Poynter fellows are Ali Velshi, Bernard Avishai, and Susan Glasser.