By CCNOW
Today, the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now announced 51 winners of the 2024 CCNow Journalism Awards.
Now in its fourth year, the CCNow awards program has become a recognized standard for excellence. This year’s winners hail from around the world, from outlets big and small, and, together, their work represents the leading edge of climate storytelling.
The 2024 CCNow Journalists of the Year are: Tristan Ahtone, an editor-at-large for Grist, who spearheaded an investigation exposing how land-grant universities in the US use stolen Indigenous land to boost oil and gas production; Audrey Cerdan, climate editor at France Télévisions, who replaced the national public broadcaster’s traditional evening weathercasts with “weather-climate reports,” adding climate context to the hot-and-cold of the day — the reports were a hit with viewers, boosting the network’s ratings — and Rachel Ramirez, a climate reporter at CNN, who brought fresh stories focused on climate justice to a global audience, while also working to support fellow Pacific Islander journalists via the Uproot Project and the Asian American Journalists Association.
“Tristan, Audrey, and Rachel are not only responsible for more than their share of great journalism, they are setting the tone for what it means to be a climate journalist,” said Mark Hertsgaard, CCNow co-founder and executive director. “Their work is a service to the public and a challenge to journalists everywhere to up their climate game.”
Outlets represented among other winners include global stalwarts, like Agence France-Presse, BBC News, and Reuters; local outfits, like public broadcasters in Louisiana and Connecticut; and many newsrooms on the front lines of climate emergency, including Philstar.com in the Philippines, the Nigerian Tribune, Uganda-based InfoNile, and the People’s Archive of Rural India.
For 2024, CCNow received more than 1,250 entries, from journalists in dozens of countries working in every medium. A judging panel of 117 distinguished journalists selected three winners in each of 14 subject-based categories, including solutions, justice, politics, and health, among others.
Judges additionally awarded three Emerging Journalists of the Year, individuals with fewer than five years of experience whose work shows exceptional promise, and three entries in a category for large projects and collaborations, work that constituted a major, dedicated undertaking for the newsrooms and journalists involved.
“Judges were astonished not just at the volume of stories but at their consistent quality,” said Kyle Pope, CCNow co-founder and executive director of strategic initiatives. “In every category, story after story was told with passion and care, informing audiences about the most important story of our time.”
“Winning work in these awards demonstrates the enormity and complexity of the climate emergency,” Pope added. “For journalists, it’s evidence of something we say all the time at CCNow: that climate change is a story for every reporter and every beat in the newsroom.”
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Covering Climate Now is a nonprofit, nonpartisan journalism collaboration with hundreds of news outlet partners from more than 60 countries. Grounded in the conviction that more and better news coverage is itself an essential climate solution, CCNow supports, convenes, and trains journalists and newsrooms to produce rigorous climate coverage that engages audiences. More information at www.coveringclimatenow.org.
Featured image credit: jcomp | Freepik
