13 Dec 2019, 11:28

Rose-Anne
Clermont
Rose-Anne Clermont is an award-winning freelance journalist writing on migration and environmentalism. Her work has been published by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel, Berliner Zeitung, Die Zeit, and U.S.-based media including The New York Times, NPR and USA Today. Rose-Anne is currently a freelance editor and trainer for media development projects focused on environmental conservation in East Africa.

Summoning our creative spirits to cover new angles of the energy transition

Illustration: Mwelwa Musonko

As 2019 is drawing to a close, we at CLEW are reflecting on our highlights of yet another busy year for the CLEW team and the global CLEW Journalism Network. Undoubtedly, meeting many of you at the "Global Energy Transition Journalism Conference: Business in Transition" was one such highlight. And what would be better suited to reminisce than to reveal the last in the series of artist and illstrator Mwelwa Musonko's especially made cartoon strips following the conference? It captures the rigorously interdisciplinary spirit that today's journalism should adopt in the face of the complex reporting challenges at hand. At the conference, business and environmental journalists discovered areas where the energy transition and business intersect – and discussed how collaboration could work in other areas too: health, politics, or science.

Journalists can get pretty comfortable in the confines of a specialised beat, covering one topic in one place – whether it’s business, energy or healthcare for a city, region, or country. How to get out of that comfort zone and do a better job of reporting the multi-faceted energy transition was a the subject of much brainstorming at CLEW's Global Energy Transition Journalism GETJO19 conference in April.

Considering the border- and beat-crossing nature of the topic, energy transition journalists could use some inspiration from the great master of interdisciplinary work, Leonardo da Vinci, as illustrator Mwelwa Musonko playfully suggests in this illustration inspired by the event.

"I think that reporters, no matter where they work, could start looking out for colleagues in other departments and produce work that has much more depth and breadth than if they were operating alone," former New York Times business reporter Leslie Wayne said earlier this year in an interview with the CLEW Network blog. "The energy transition story is big, important and sprawling. It crosses borders and topics. It has human, financial, political and environmental dimensions. Cross-beat reporting is needed to tackle this important and complicated subject."

This is why CLEW established The CLEW Journalism Network, a place where journalists can meet like-minded colleagues, get advice and background from other countries or fields of expertise, or find partners for collaborative projects.

If you are not already a member, you can join here.