StateImpact Texas on the TV

Congrats to StateImpact Texas, whose relentless coverage of their state’s worst drought in history led to a collaboration with PBS Newshour last week. It’s part of Newshour’s project that focuses on the impact of climate change on communities across the country. To tell the stories, they are partnering with local public media in affected places.

StateImpact reporter Terrence Henry was even credited as a production assistant on the program, for his contributions to the show (woot!). Here’s Terrence’s take, followed by video of the segment:

“For their first story, they wanted to look at how the drought has impacted Texans, and what role climate change played in that. They had been using our drought reporting for researching their piece, and contacted us to see if we wanted to collaborate on their story. So we helped them research their reporting trip, identifying the best places and people to focus on, and shared our sources and contacts from our drought reporting. We spent two days with them reporting here, even conducting some of the interviews. And we were able to share some b-roll from our rice farmers video that was used in the broadcast as well. They’ve been putting up video segments all week linking to us, and we’ve been embedding them and linking back in return. When the ten minute segment aired on Newshour, StateImpact Texas was credited during the lead-in and also given a production credit.

All in all it was a great experience, bringing national attention to both the issue and our reporting. Newshour has also made available additional materials that didn’t make the broadcast that we’ll use for content on the site in the weeks to come.”

Congrats to Team Texas. Great job.