Critics Question Objectivity of USC Health and Climate Journalism Fellowship

USC Launches New Fellowship Linking Climate Change and Health, Sparking Debate Among Experts

The University of Southern California is set to introduce a pioneering fellowship that aims to equip journalists with the skills to report on the intersection of health and climate change. However, opinions vary on the program’s implications and objectivity.

USC’s Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, in collaboration with its Center for Climate Journalism and Communication, has announced a new paid fellowship. The initiative, which offers mentoring, monthly meetings, and an intensive two-day training session, seeks to empower journalists to explore stories at the nexus of climate change and health impacts.

The fellowship’s mission statement suggests a connection between “mega-disasters” like “Los Angeles wildfires” and “Hurricane Helene” and their health consequences. Despite this, the program’s director clarifies that the initiative does not assume climate change is the sole cause of natural disasters.

“Rather, based on decades of extensive scientific evidence, we work from the baseline that climate change can amplify the severity of disasters like fires and hurricanes,” said Allison Agsten, the inaugural director of the climate journalism center, in an email to The College Fix. Agsten also contributes to other energy and climate initiatives at the university.

Agsten, who also serves as an “eco-chaplain” within USC’s Office of Religious Life, supports the university community in dealing with climate change effects. She expressed interest in working with reporters eager to investigate the extent of climate change’s impact on natural disasters.

Proposals for the program are diverse, addressing topics such as “The impact of climate change in combination with other structural and health inequities” and “Trauma and other aspects of mental health related to loss and displacement.”

However, Edward Ring, a researcher with the California Policy Center, criticizes the fellowship’s foundation as “dangerously flawed.” Ring argues that the program contradicts reports indicating “mega-disasters” are neither more frequent nor severe historically.

Ring claims the fellowship propagates a narrative of climate change as an immediate global crisis, despite conflicting evidence. He emphasizes that while natural disasters affect health, the fellowship overlooks critical global health issues such as cold-related fatalities, diseases like malaria, and malnutrition caused by conflict and corruption.

Ring warns against journalists adopting pre-set narratives, saying, “When a ‘climate reporter’ goes in to ‘engage the community’ knowing that their work will be recognized and amplified to the extent it blames the climate crisis and systemic equities for whatever challenges actually face these communities, they cause nothing but harm to those communities.”

Sterling Burnett, director of The Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy, shares Ring’s concerns. He describes the fellowship as a “training ground for activists, not journalists,” criticizing its potential bias towards viewing climate change as harmful to human health, especially in disadvantaged populations.

Burnett argues that no data supports the notion that climate change is responsible for the natural disasters cited by the fellowship. He highlights the center’s establishment with funding from foundations that deem climate change “the biggest story of our time.” In his view, the program is suitable only for those already convinced of climate change’s significant impact.