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When Annalyn Ardo\u00f1a first began producing segments for the GMA Network\u2019s Born to be Wild television show in the Philippines, she felt conflicted about leaving the political beat to cover the environment.<\/p>\nWhen Annalyn Ardo\u00f1a first began producing segments for the GMA Network\u2019s Born to be Wild television show in the Philippines, she felt conflicted about leaving the political beat to cover the environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy other journalist friends were tackling corruption, poverty, and child labor,\u201d explained Ardo\u00f1a, an alumna of Metcalf\u2019s 2015 Annual Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists. \u201cI felt like I wasn\u2019t doing something valid on the environmental beat. But as I understood more of the issues, I realized the environment is the one issue that we all should be talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ardo\u00f1a said the environment is an important issue in the Philippines, where more than a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see the degradation of the environment as one of the main reasons Filipinos are poor right now,\u201d said Ardo\u00f1a. \u201cIf you address the problems in the ocean such as overfishing, you address hunger, you address poverty. If you address the problems in the forest like deforestation, you address water availability, flood control, and the living quality of Filipinos.\u201d<\/p>\n
Producing segments for Born to Be Wild puts Ardo\u00f1a in regular contact with scientists, which has made her keenly aware of the communications gap between scientists and journalists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to attend the Metcalf workshop to be able to understand how scientist think,\u201d said Ardo\u00f1a. At the Metcalf workshop she learned about the latest climate change research, how to read scientific journal articles, and how journalists can connect and build relationships with scientists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned why scientists give you the most boring answers, it\u2019s because they are trying to be as accurate as possible. Journalists want something more sensational,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Ardo\u00f1a pointed to an article she wrote about climate change which she described as \u201cclimate change for dummies,\u201d as an example of how Metcalf\u2019s workshop influenced her reporting. She noticed that news stories about the U. N. Climate Talks in Paris were written predominantly in English and were difficult for non-scientists to understand. She set out to change that by writing an article about the Paris Talks in Filipino and explaining the complex science in a way that her readers could understand.<\/p>\n
Using humor, Ardo\u00f1a compared climate change to a love story between the Earth and greenhouse gasses. \u201cI was able to explain climate change and liken it to love or being rejected, because those kinds of analogies work with news audiences in the Philippines,\u201d she said. \u201cI was able to explain climate change in that way because Metcalf explained it so clearly to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Metcalf workshop was amazing and enlightening,\u201d Ardo\u00f1a reflected.<\/p>\n