{"id":20911,"date":"2021-03-03T15:31:37","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T20:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metcalfinstitute.org\/?p=20911"},"modified":"2021-03-11T15:57:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T20:57:53","slug":"jakespring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/jakespring\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"HeadshotGrowing up in a tiny Wisconsin town of 5,000 people, environment reporter Jake Spring craved adventure. Years later, that adventurous spirit would take him around the globe from China to the Brazilian rainforest as a foreign correspondent for Reuters.<\/a><\/p>\n

A stint at his high school newspaper sparked Spring\u2019s interest in journalism, which continued in college. \u201cI first realized that journalism could be a real career option when I studied abroad in China during my junior year,\u201d says Spring, who interned at a magazine in Beijing during the 2008 Olympics. \u201cI met foreign correspondents and it suddenly became a much more tangible career choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spring obtained a BA degree in Asian and Middle Eastern studies from Northwestern University and eventually landed a job with Reuters covering the Chinese economy and the automotive industry. \u201cIt was a great time to report in China because this is where the lion\u2019s share of the electric car boom was starting,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Spring\u2019s focus turned to Brasilia, Brazil, in 2017, when he seized an opportunity to cover commodities in the South American country. \u201cSince then, my interest in the Amazon rainforest has gotten stronger, especially in 2019 when wildfires in this ecosystem hit their peak,\u201d he says. \u201cThis altered the direction and focus of my reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spring dove into stories about illegal deforestation in the Amazon, the Brazilian government\u2019s weakening of environmental protection policies, and the effects on climate change. The Amazon, which spans nine countries, is the world\u2019s largest rainforest. Researchers have warned that protecting the Amazon is crucial to addressing climate change because of the forest ecosystems\u2019 complex interactions with global climate. \u201cI thought that the events I was reporting on in China were some of the biggest stories possible, but there is no bigger story globally than climate change,\u201d he says. \u201cIf we let the Amazon burn or get cut down, we will be killing ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeking a stronger foundation in science, Spring attended Metcalf Institute\u2019s 2020 Annual Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists<\/a> as drought-fueled fires continued to ravage the Amazon\u2019s ecosystem. The workshop explored the ways that a 2-degree Celsius increase in global average temperatures will affect ocean and terrestrial ecosystems, the frequency of extreme weather around the globe, and human health. Importantly, the workshop also helps journalists build confidence in reporting on scientific uncertainty and translating scientific research for news audiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to Metcalf, I am now writing more science-based stories about the Amazon and feel more comfortable approaching scientific studies that sometimes seem intimidating or difficult,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Those stories include a powerful piece<\/a> about the fate of animals in the path of destructive fires in the Brazilian Pantanal, the world\u2019s largest wetland and one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet.<\/p>\n

Spring hopes his stories reach a wide audience, inspire people to act \u201cand ultimately influence the environmental agenda in Brazil,\u201d says Spring. Looking to the future, he plans to write more solution-oriented stories about efforts to create a sustainable economy in Amazon and restore the forest. \u201cAll of my traveling has encouraged me to think about the world as a whole, driving home that climate change is an important topic that people need more direct information about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spring also listening to the stories of other journalists through his hour-long podcast, Foreign Correspondence<\/em><\/a>, where he interviews journalists around the globe. <\/p>\nread more alumni profiles<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up in a tiny Wisconsin town of 5,000 people, environment reporter Jake Spring craved adventure. Years later, that adventurous spirit would take him around the globe from China to the Brazilian rainforest as a foreign correspondent for Reuters. A stint at his high school newspaper sparked Spring\u2019s interest in journalism, which continued in college. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2201,"featured_media":20896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[51,10,1],"tags":[835,124,838,852,66,849,843,832,296,127,846,841,142],"class_list":["post-20911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alum-hp","category-alumni-spotlight","category-uncategorized","tag-amazon","tag-annual-science-immersion-workshop-for-journalists","tag-brasilia","tag-china","tag-climate-change","tag-deforestation","tag-foreign-correspondence","tag-jake-spring","tag-journalist","tag-metcalf-institute","tag-podcast","tag-profile","tag-reuters"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20911"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21054,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20911\/revisions\/21054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/metcalf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}