News Editors: 3 Ways Your Media Company Can More Effectively Cover Climate Change

Proper climate reporting has become more urgent than ever. As the amount of data on global climate change grows and becomes increasingly more alarming, it is important for media companies to strive for excellence in climate reporting. Entire newsrooms – editors, reporters and marketers alike – should be equipped with the necessary tools to cover the issue and inform readers. As a student at Northwestern University studying journalism and environmental policy, I found two interesting articles to help in this pursuit. Rosalind Donald’s article, The climate crisis is a story for every beat, discusses the roadblocks newsrooms could encounter in science and climate reporting, resulting in a lackluster coverage of climate change issues. Reporting on climate change may misalign with certain news timelines and preconceptions of what reporting should look like. However, Donald makes the case for incorporating climate coverage into multiple forms and sections in order to reach a wider audience and properly represent the issue’s reach.

Photo courtesy of UN Climate Change Twitter, @UNFCC

Newsrooms are constantly learning from their mistakes – and climate reporting is no exception. Covering climate change: What reporters get wrong and how to get it right, a piece by Chloe Reichel gives definitive ways to remedy some common mistakes newsrooms make in their climate reporting. Through an interview with journalist Elizabeth Arnold, Reichel provides tips for everything from story structure to tone. In the end, Arnold provides some helpful examples of “exemplary outlets reporting on climate.” Based on these two articles and my experience in journalism and environmental policy, I have developed three newsroom practices that will advance your coverage of climate issues.

• Localize For Impact – Use people and places in your community to show how climate change is affecting your direct readership.

• Understand The Urgency – Look for every opportunity to incorporate climate change into your reporting, because the issue is ongoing. 

• Specialize Your Staff – Train your journalists on climate science, ensuring everyone in the newsroom is knowledgable on the latest data and trends. 

In your next staff meeting, remember these tips to ensure the entire company is on board with proper climate reporting practices. 

Kira Fahmy is a senior at Northwestern University majoring in Journalism, minoring in Environmental Policy & Culture and a part of the Integrated Marketing Communications certificate program. She is passionate about multimedia storytelling and sustainability.

You can find her @kirafahmy on Twitter or on LinkedIn.

Aspiring Athletes: 3 Nutrition Practices to Better Enhance High Performance Training

Whether you're preparing for a marathon, enjoy triathlons or find a passion for intense cardio classes, high performance training requires a level of dedication and commitment beyond the typical workout. While there are countless perspectives on the best supplements and diets, it's more important to adopt healthy habits for long-term success. As a Division I student athlete, I believe it's important to be consistent with your nutrition in order to prevent injuries, optimize your performance and find athletic success in the long run (no pun intended!).

Rachel Paul's article, How To Build a To-Go Lunch, gives meal prep tips for fueling with a busy schedule. When people have a jam-packed week, it's often hard to eat the right foods for a high intensity workout. Paul puts her formula to use by suggesting quick and easy recipes to make the night before a busy day. She also organizes her recipes by showing the health benefit of each ingredient. Through these simple meals, it's easier than ever to stay energized and prepare for a high intensity workout.

Image from @fuelupnu located on Instagram

And what about hydration? In Andy Blow's article, How Much Dehydration Can You Tolerate Before Your Performance Suffers?, he busts the myths and uses data-backed information to show the effects of dehydration. Blow talks about the relationship between bodyweight and sweat-loss, and analyzes the "threshold" of hydration based on the intensity of performance. But the best part of his article? The free online sweat test. Here, you can learn the best hydration regime for your training, which you can later refine through trial and error. 

Based on my experience and review of these two articles, I have developed three nutrition practices that will optimize your performance training. 

Action Recommendations: 

1. Maximize your Preparation – While it's easy to skip meals due to a busy schedule, it's important to plan ahead and intentionally select the most beneficial nutrients for an energized training session. 
2. Hydrate to Perform Great – Carefully track your water intake before, during and after a heavy training session; Track your fluid intake on an app, refill your bottle as soon as it's empty, and remember to take gulps every 15 minutes of a workout! 
3. Recovery is Serious – Strategize your nutrition immediately after training by eating a well-balanced meal, replenishing your fluids and setting goals for your next session. 

So the next time you're looking to purchase the newest and Instagram-worthy fitness trend, remember these essential nutrition practices for a healthy and strong training session.

Lily Katzman 
I am a current senior at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism where I'm majoring in Journalism and minoring in Spanish and Integrated Marketing Communications. I'm also a student-athlete on the Women's Field Hockey team. I have a passion for the sports industry, and I'm always looking for ways to bridge my journalism experience with creating important brand narratives. Connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter.  

Business Owners: 3 Ways to Optimize Your SEO and Improve Business Operations

In an increasingly digital world, SEO performance has become more and more essential to promoting businesses. There is a great deal of competition from other businesses, so having strong search engine optimization is a vital way to promote your website. Furthermore, having top keyword performance gets your site to be more visible, increasing a user’s trust in your content. The following two articles provide methods to develop your website's SEO. 

Robert Clough’s article, “SEO Hacks for Beginners: Quick Tips to Get Started Today”, published on Search Engine Guide gives a quick breakdown of strategies to improve your website’s keyword performance in order to rank higher in search engines. His tips are simple but are key to ensuring that your website is getting the visibility you desire. For example, he emphasizes the importance of having an SEO friendly URL and utilization of keywords. He also links additional helpful resources so you can continue improving your site. They are optimized for beginners and will be useful to start implementing Clough’s tips.

SEO Breakdown

Steven van Vessum, Vojtěch Zach & Lorena Torsani’s article “UX and SEO: A New Perspective on Winning at SEO”, published on ContentKing gives another perspective on how to increase your visibility. They focus more on the importance of user experience. In particular, it is essential to understanding the intent of potential readers. The article provides various ways to appeal to readers who have different intentions in coming to your site. For instance, if your reader is looking for information, they want the content presented as simply and easily as possible. This is a great way to think more critically about the purpose of your business site and the types of readers who you want to attract to your content.

Based on my reviews of these articles, I've formulated three recommendations for business owners who are interested in increasing the exposure of their site. SEO is an essential aspect of growing a business and its importance can't be understated.

Recommendations:

• Improve SEO Performance: Make your website visually appealing and easy to use for your readers.

• Optimize Relevant Content: Optimize your content to make sure your information easily accessible and understandable.

• Keywords Win Clicks: Increase your views by leveraging keywords to attract more people to your site.

SEO is an essential aspect of growing your business through increased visibility. Consider strengthening your SEO performance with these recommendations. These will help you to grow your follower base and become more and trusted in the eyes of your business’ followers. Improve your SEO today to ensure your business will continue to flourish.

About the Author:

My name is Allison and I am a student at Northwestern University studying Learning and Organizational Change and Integrated Marketing and Communications. I am interested in digital marketing and consumer insights. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter.