Improving Climate Change Reporting in Chicago

The Chicago Headline Club invites you to the join the conversation about how we can improve coverage of climate change and its consequences on the region. While we may not face the hurricanes and rising seas on the East Coast or wildfires in the West, the Midwest does have its own struggles. The event will feature a presentation about the effects of climate change on the Chicago area followed by a panel discussion with local environmental reporters.

Join us Tuesday, January 22 from 6-8 p.m. at DePaul University in downtown Chicago.

Tickets are available on Eventbrite

Robin Amer is the host and creator of The City podcast from USA Today. The City tells true stories of how power works in urban America, and was named one of the Best Podcasts of 2018 by Apple Podcasts and the New York Times. Amer won the 2015 WNYC Podcast Accelerator competition and previously served as the Deputy Editor of the alt-weekly Chicago Reader and as a producer at WBEZ.

Tony Briscoe is an environmental reporter with the Chicago Tribune who has written extensively about issues facing the Great Lakes and the impacts of climate change in the Midwest. Since joining the Tribune in 2014, Briscoe delved into a broad range of issues, including the viability of storing industrial carbon emissions underground and how warmer water temperatures could affect fishing on Lake Michigan. In 2018, he was selected to participate in the Metcalf Institute’s 20th annual science immersion fellowship for journalists at the University of Rhode Island. A graduate of Michigan State University, Briscoe began his career as a breaking news reporter at his hometown newspaper The Detroit News.

Michael Hawthorne is a Pulitzer-finalist investigative reporter who covers environment and public health issues for the Chicago Tribune. His stories have prompted new laws and health reforms at the federal and state level, including rules eliminating the use of toxic, ineffective flame retardants in furniture, a federal ban on the export of brain-damaging mercury and tougher safety requirements for Illinois water utilities. Hawthorne began his journalism career in Florida and worked for newspapers in Illinois and Ohio before joining the Tribune in 2004.

Cynthia Linton is a former journalist and Headline Club president. After 20 years with Lerner Newspapers, where she ended up as executive editor and taught for two decades at Medill. She’s been active with the Sierra Club for 12 years and in 2017 was trained by Al Gore and his Climate Reality Project to give his “Inconvenient Truth” slideshow. Now retired, she spends most of her time on climate change.