JenniferOladipo.com

Environmental stories for radio? Yes, please. I just inished my first fast and dirty lesson in radio production the at our local public radio studio.  There was even a little bit of “acting” involved - or rather, some gesticulating that somehow helps you sound more human.  Though it was very basic, the other two print reporters and I came out with our own 47-second (ish) pieces. The curtain of mystery has been removed and I’m ready to start learning radio. It’s fun.

Our gracious coach, WFPL reporter Kristin Espeland Gourlay, let it be known that she had ulterior motives, namely encouraging us to contribute to the new Ohio River Radio Consortium. It’s coverage area is Ohio River watershed (freelancers, listen up).

I love that the consortium’s coverage area is defined by a natural feature, as opposed to political lines. As its brochure says, “just as the watershed ignores states lines, so does pollution.

I’m a long way from sounding like the local and national reporters I admire, but at least today I got my start. More to come on environmental reporting for radio.

This Saturday I’ll be on a panel at Bluegrass Bioneers conference talkin’ environmental journalism alongside two great journalists. And there will be plenty more to see and hear throughout the weekend, live and via satellite from Cali.

From the website:

Bluegrass Bioneers 2009 (bb2009.org) - presented by BEcreative, Rauch Planetarium, and the University of Louisville Center for Environmental Education - is the southeast’s Beaming Bioneers incarnation and is based in Louisville, KY. Louisville is proud to be a 2009 Bioneers satellite city (the only satellite city within 350 miles in any direction). The 3-day conference will be held at the Rauch Planetarium (Google Map Link) and on the UofL campus, October 16th-18th.

Bluegrass Bioneers 2009 will combine national plenary speakers and experts beamed in via satellite from California with live local & regional speakers, experts, and performances for an entertaining and enriching event that encourages innovative, creative solutions to help Louisville and the mid-west build a more just and sustainable society. Issues covered locally will include: MTR/ENERGY, SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE, GREEN MEDIA & ECO-ART, LAND USE & TRANSPORTATION, BUILT ENVIRONMENT, POLICY & ACTIVISM, ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION, and OTHERS.

On a national level, Bioneers is an inspired and inspiring annual 3-day conference in Northern California of more than 3,000 social, scientific, and environmental innovators working to create a more just and sustainable world for humanity. The website is www.bioneers.org and the organization’s tagline is “Revolution from the Heart of Nature.

See you there!

Eight years ago, ankle-deep in piles of compost and dirt, I wondered who on earth would eat food out of this vacant lot that once housed a car-repair shop in a sketchy Savannah, GA neighborhood. Turns out today, thousands of people would.

Check out this week’s LEO for  my interview with Will Allen, who for the moment seems like the national poster boy for urban farming - I mean really urban, like vacant house lots and old industrial sites. And really farming, like enough for people to live, like fish farms in green houses. He doesn’t want you to just fix the food system, he wants you to be the food system. And as far as agricultural poster boys go, he is definitely not the norm.

How does a year sneak by like this?

Well, no reason to dwell on it. Better to post a few recent writings and move on. May I recommend a look at a local movement to make green political color and an irreverent examination of Earth Day. More to come, of course.

At the Society of Professional Jounalists awards ceremony last night in Louisville, biggest ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ moments came after a couple of brief power outages caused by thunderstorms. We couldn’t really hear the ruckus outside, insulated as we were in a room at the Louisville Zoo, chatting loudly in a room just above an orangutan, tapir and other endangered or threatened species in the Islands exhibit.

Then came the rapid-fire award announcements. I won 2nd place in the Continuing Coverage in the Newspaper/Wire category for my environmental reporting at LEO. I’ve been trying to forge something of an environment beat there, and I guess I have in the eyes of judges in some midwestern state somewhere.

It was fun being a freelancer at the event, having ties to more than one publication. The schmingling (schmoozing + mingling) was good. So were the brownies. Another freelancer buddy of mine, about eight months pregnant, wondered aloud who would get the story out first if she went into labor during one of the power outages. We decided it would probably be the bloggers.

This is going to be, in a word, awesome. I’ve been awarded an Environmental Reporting Fellowship at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in May. Journalists will spend a week learning about “tropical ecosystems … deep background in tropical ecology to enhance the accuracy of reporting on science and environmental issues.” There will be opportunities to interview scientists and other specialists working at the congressional-chartered nonprofit.

This particular journalist will be sure to spend some free time soaking up information about medicinal indigenous plant species.