(Photo Credit: America.gov)

DL: I’ve gotten really interested in this, and asked others about it – the problem of preaching to the choir. At Mother Jones, do you see that as sort of the point, or is there an attempt to reach out to a broader audience?

KS: We have a more generally politically progressive audience who maybe isn’t following the climate debate quite as closely, but is following other really important political and social issues right now. So, it’s about bringing in readers to the climate conversation who maybe came for something else.

And it also reaches a wider audience. I think a lot of reporters read what we cover and can get new and different ideas and insights from what we write as well. We’re covering specific angles that they might not have been covering, and we have to do a lot of investigative work, so it is reaching a wider audience through that.

DL: How did you first come to the environmental policy beat?

KS: I was a journalism and politics major in college, and my first job after college was working at Grist magazine out in Seattle. I had been interested in politics but hadn’t followed environmental politics quite as closely as some other things, but I just became really interested in the subject area. It was an area where there was constantly news, and I didn’t think it was being particularly well covered. And it has become the only thing I really want to write about right now.

DL: How has your approach changed in going from Grist to Mother Jones?

KS: I’m writing for people who maybe don’t follow things quite as closely, so you need to explain things a bit more in depth. I don’t think its too drastically different. I think my approach has been—no matter which place I'm writing for—that I’m writing to people who don’t necessarily have an in-depth understanding. That’s the important thing, to make it accessible to more people. I try to imagine I’m writing for my folks back home, or people who aren’t either obsessed with politics or obsessed with environmental news.

DL: Since I’m looking through the challenges of covering climate change, what are we in the media doing the worst at?

KS: I think that communicating the science is one of the biggest challenges for everyone. Scientists have trouble communicating it to the public. They are by nature cautious, and everything is very measured, and it takes a long time to study these things and its often very hard to communicate that nuance and care, and that’s also hard for reporters.

And scientific literacy in the US is not very high, so to figure out how to overcome those barriers and communicate theories accurately is huge.

DL: Do you think it is getting better?

KS: I don’t know if I’ve been around long enough to say if its getting any better. Especially with communicating science, there is a very loud echo chamber out there that is actively fighting against the science, and that definitely hasn’t gotten much easier.

Follow Dave Levitan on Twitter @davelevitan.
Image credit: Kate Sheppard; America.gov