Associated Press expanding climate coverage

The Associated Press has announced it will expand its climate coverage in an effort to “enhance the global understanding of climate change across the world.” 

In a statement on Tuesday, the newswire said it will hire 20 new journalists based in four different continents to help supplement its current coverage of climate change and the environment. 

The journalists will focus on the “profound and varied impacts of climate change on society in areas such as food, agriculture, migration, housing and urban planning, disaster response, the economy, and culture,” the statement read.

The AP will also launch a StoryShare network for climate coverage, which will allow news organizations to “share their content with one another and in turn way provide more robust coverage for their audiences,” according to the statement. 

“This is a substantial investment to ramp up and dramatically expand the outstanding work AP has been doing on climate and environment for years,” Julie Pace, the AP’s senior vice president and executive editor, said in a statement.

“This far-reaching initiative will transform how we cover the climate story — helping people understand the implications and impacts of climate change on all aspects of their lives. We will do that both through our journalism and by sharing our capabilities with local newsrooms so they too can tell impactful climate stories for their audiences.”

This is one of the newswire’s first big initiatives since Pace began serving as its top newsroom leader. 

Pace replaced Sally Buzbee, who left the AP last May to take a leadership position at The Washington Post.

The new initiative is supported by several philanthropic organizations, including the Rockefeller Foundation, Quadrivium and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the AP’s statement noted.