NPR lays off its chief climate editor
There's no conspiracy — just another newsroom making a poor decision.
When CBS News gutted its climate team, lots of folks told me the company’s new Trump-friendly owners must have given the order. Same thing when the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post laid off most of its climate reporters.
I kept telling folks I saw no evidence of a conspiracy. The sad reality is that climate coverage just isn’t a priority for most newsroom leaders. When required to cut costs, far too often they decide climate is expendable.
Gut-wrenching case in point: NPR’s chief climate editor, Neela Banerjee, posted on LinkedIn last week that she’d been laid off. NPR’s climate desk, she wrote, “no longer exists separately but has been folded into the National Desk.”
“We were 10 people who did ambitious, prize-winning enterprise and broke news,” she wrote.
Banerjee wasn’t alone; 10 journalists across NPR lost their jobs last week. There was no billionaire oligarch gunning for climate, no one trying to appease President Trump and his oil industry patrons. NPR was strapped for cash after Republicans in Congress slashed federal funding. Climate got the short end of the stick.
I haven’t been able to confirm if any other NPR climate journalists lost their jobs. But killing the standalone climate desk is bad no matter what.
Banerjee’s team organized an annual Climate Solutions Week, corralling journalists from NPR member stations across the U.S. to tell stories that “gave audiences a sense of agency and inspiration amid the planetary gloom,” as Banerjee wrote on LinkedIn. Her team also “built a reporting collaborative of more than 50 member stations which covered climate at the local level and became tightly knit in the process,” she wrote.
“We broke down silos within NPR and helped our colleagues at shows, podcasts and desks understand climate change in their contexts,” she wrote.
After this story was published on Monday, NPR spokesperson Juliet Barbara told me that the broadcaster “has not eliminated its Climate team or any other coverage areas; we have reorganized our newsroom.”
“While the newsroom reorganization was driven by financial necessity, we also took care to ensure that climate coverage and all areas of coverage would be preserved and not diminished,” she said in an email. “Integrating the climate team into the national desk means climate journalism is able to be woven into more of our reporting: climate is a cost-of-living story, a politics story, a community story that touches every beat we cover.”
“Our commitment to climate journalism has not changed,” she added.
Indeed, climate is an everything story that all reporters can and should take seriously. But without a dedicated climate desk serving as an internal accountability engine, it’s hard to imagine the same quantity and quality of climate work on the airwaves. Which sucks, because NPR is awesome and important and influential.
On a personal note, I hate seeing Banerjee lose her job because she’s truly one of the best in the business. After working at the Los Angeles Times, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, along with her colleagues at Inside Climate News, for their epic investigation exposing Exxon’s history of hiding the truth about global warming.
Even in a time of dire financial straits, the idea that NPR’s top editors thought they could do without Banerjee — and a standalone climate desk — is crazy to me.
Support climate journalism, folks. And someone, please hire Neela.
What is Patagonia thinking?
I’m a fan of Pattie Gonia, a drag queen and LGBTQ+ activist who has raised millions of dollars for environmental groups. You can find them on Instagram here. They have 1.8 million followers — one-third as many as Patagonia, but still a big number.
I’m also Patagonia fan; as I write this, I have a green Patagonia jacket draped over my chair. But to many environmentalists’ disappointment, the outdoor retailer sued Pattie Gonia in January, claiming trademark infringement.
Pattie Gonia, legal name Wyn Wiley, had filed a trademark application to use their drag queen name for clothing sales and activism. That triggered Patagonia’s lawsuit. The Ventura-based company said in its complaint that it “has been and will continue to be irreparably harmed” by Pattie Gonia’s appropriation of its brand.
The legalities are beyond my ability to pass judgment; the Los Angeles Times parses the details in this story.
The lawsuit is back in the news because Pattie Gonia posted two videos in the last few days: one accusing Patagonia of betraying its progressive values and taking advantage of a hostile political climate toward LGBTQ+ Americans, and another offering to drop the trademark application if the company drops its lawsuit.
“I think they looked at this political moment and thought that they could pull this off without pushback,” Pattie Gonia said.
Unfortunately, Patagonia won’t take the easy out. On Monday — the first day of Pride Month! — the company posted its own Instagram message. It listed multiple demands for dropping the lawsuit — including that Pattie Gonia stop selling clothing and other merchandise under their drag name.
“We wish this lawsuit had not been necessary, and we want to acknowledge any hurt it has caused, especially in the LGBTQ+ community,” the company wrote.
The whole thing is bizarre. Even if Patagonia executives have a case on the merits — and again, I have no idea — what are they afraid of? That they might lose a few sales to an environmentalist doing awesome work? That a handful of bigots might confuse Pattie Gonia with Patagonia and stop patronizing their stores?
Time to get up from my desk and take a walk. Fortunately it’s warm enough outside that I don’t need my jacket.
Say hi at the Hollywood Climate Summit!
If you’re attending the Hollywood Climate Summit this Wednesday and Thursday in Los Angeles, I would love to say hello! Just reply to this email to let me know you’ll be there, or come find me at the event.
I’m planning to send out daily email updates; we’ll see if I can stick to that. It’s a very cool gathering, bringing together artists, educators, scientists and executives working at the intersection of climate and entertainment.
This is my first Hollywood Climate Summit since I started Climate-Colored Goggles in October. Here’s what I wrote last year for the L.A. Times.
The antidote to climate doomscrolling
The Looking Forward newsletter finds the breakthroughs, solutions, and progress you're not seeing elsewhere — free, every Friday from Grist.
Having a Climate Desk supported NPR’s reporters and editors in recognizing the climate aspects in every story. I’m sorry to hear that they found that expendable. Still, the history of the Climate Desk’s work won’t be lost. NPR’s news operation will carry on. They’ll keep reading your Substack for ideas.
The Patagonia case is wild to me. This can't be the first time the two actors have interacted. Whatever the merits of the case, this isn't the sort of thing you want litigated in the public square. Just makes it seem like Patagonia learned all the wrong lessons from the Budweiser controversy.