Impacts of the UBC Lind Initiative Seminar – An Interview with Laura Sciarpelletti

Laura Sciarpelletti, a UBC Graduate School of Journalism alumna who participated in the Lind Seminar (GPP 591) in 2019, indicated that the coursework and discussions around climate change have positively impacted her work producing and writing as a journalist with CBC Vancouver. Lindsay Marsh, Communications and Program Development Manager at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA) wanted to learn more and spoke with Laura by phone. Please find the interview below.

Laura Sciarpelletti headshot


Lindsay: Could you please describe who you are and the work you do at CBC?

Laura Sciarpelletti: While I was a student at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism, I did an internship with the CBC. I’ve now been a casual employee at CBC Vancouver for nearly one year and I do various types of work in online writing and radio story producing. A struggle for us as young journalists is to find a beat. Specializing can be tricky because it can open up new avenues but also back you into a corner. I haven’t specialized because I want to report on everything. But I’ve become increasingly interested in climate change reporting as I felt like it wasn’t being reported on correctly. It is a partisan issue. It’s challenging to report on climate change without alienating certain audiences.

Lindsay: Why did you apply to the 2019 Lind Initiative Seminar at UBC?

Laura: I applied to the Lind Initiative seminar to gain the knowledge and perspective needed to cover stories on climate change. I wanted to show the CBC that I have the specific interest in climate change reporting and that I have the educational foundation to back it up. The course was part of the Phil Lind Initiatives series on “America and the Climate Crisis” in Term 2 at UBC. In the class, I was one of the only students with no science or climate change background. It was great as I was able to contribute a great deal from a journalist’s standpoint. I learned a lot from the students and the Phil Lind Initiative speakers who lectured.

Lindsay: What were some of the impacts of your participation in the Lind Initiative Seminar on your work at the CBC?

Laura: The Lind Initiative seminar changed the way I pitch stories at the CBC, mostly in the radio department. Climate change reporting has been mostly doomsday in tone, but what I learned the course is that people understand climate change impacts when you localize the impacts and put it in their own backyard. Local publications like CBC Vancouver can make a difference in the way people think about climate change by focusing on B.C. stories and avoid presenting climate change as a partisan issue.

Since participating in the Lind Initiative seminar, I now seek out radio stories the CBC has done on city councils across B.C. taking actions to making their most cities greener, and repackage the interviews for a web audience. I’ve begun choosing more articles that highlight local municipal actions to address climate change. As a story producer for radio, I pitch climate change pieces to ensure this content is reflected in our programming.

The Lind Initiative seminar also taught me how to be more solutions-based in my writing as a journalist. It’s important to showcase the way that people positively address climate change. As an example, a new city councillor in Nelson, Rik Logtenberg, has put together a group of municipal politicians from across B.C. who are committing to making changes in their own towns to hit climate change goals while also advocating for change nationally. He has already enlisted 57 mayors since January! Rik created a Climate Leadership Caucus to lobby for federal money for climate change action. That story was pitched by northern radio and I found a way to use it as a written web story. It’s the perfect example of solution based climate reporting. That same week the report on how poorly Canada was doing on climate change action was released, so this was a nice counterpoint.

Journalists have a duty to inform and educate to a certain degree. There is a way we can educate while also letting readers make up their own minds. I helped to book Phil Lind Initiative speaker Bill McKibben for an interview on CBC radio and booked a few students from Strike for Climate Change. I wouldn’t have come across these stories without participating in the Lind Initiative seminar.

The course has also made me a stronger writer and improved my critical thinking. I believe that the way we communicate climate change will help convince people that “it’s everyone’s problem” and to take urgent action.

Lindsay: We hope that you will continue to see success in your work producing and writing climate change stories. Thank you for sharing your story with us.

*Photo credit: Brenna Owen