Past SEJ annual conferences

SEJ's annual conferences bring together environmental policymakers and activists from every point of view for more than four days of face-to-face meetings with the world's most experienced and energetic environmental journalists.

At past conferences, reporters have traded tips and techniques, listened to informative panels and interviewed news sources as prominent as the vice president of the United States and the director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Information about previous SEJ annual conferences is listed below. Some of the documents are in PDF format and require the free Adobe Acrobat ® reader.

Roanoke, VA 2008

SEJ's 18th annual conference, October 15-19, was hosted by Virginia Tech. The agenda provides descriptions of the tours and sessions, and lists of speakers with links to biographies.

On Wednesday evening, the winners of SEJ's seventhth annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment were announced. Later in the week, the 2008 Stolberg Award was presented to the National Journal's Margie Kriz.

See SEJ's official conference coverage page, which includes links to independent bloggers about conference happenings. Our page is a work-in-progress, so please visit often! (If you have good shots of your tours or sessions that you'd like to share through posting on www.sejarchive.org, SEJ's Flickr photo page, or in the SEJournal, send JPG or GIF files to Cindy MacDonald, SEJ's Web Content Manager, or mail prints to the SEJ office. Please include a short caption, with IDs for people if possible, and how you would like to be credited.

You'll find lists of conference exhibitors, advertisers and independent hospitality reception hosts here.

Questions or comments about the conference? Please contact the SEJ office.

Stanford, CA 2007

The ever-popular Friday network lunch featured twenty-two table topics. Photo by Amy Gahran, via Flickr/SEJ2007 (CC license).

SEJ's 17th annual conference took place earlier in the year than usual, September 5-9, with attendance hitting an all-new high. Our host was Stanford University, the theme "Innovation and Solutions." Multimedia coverage is here. On the agenda, you'll find descriptions of all the tours and sessions, and lists of speakers.

Winners of SEJ's sixth annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment were announced. The 2007 Stolberg Award was given in honor of the late Mike Dunne, a founding SEJ member, assistant editor of the SEJournal, and senior reporter for The (Baton Rouge) Advocate.

See SEJ's official conference coverage page, which includes audio, video, photos, as well as links to independent bloggers about conference happenings. Our page is a work-in-progress, so please visit often! (If you have good shots of your tours or sessions that you'd like to share through posting on www.sejarchive.org or in the SEJournal, send JPG or GIF files to Cindy MacDonald, SEJ's Web Content Manager, or mail prints to the SEJ office. Please include a short caption, with IDs for people if possible, and how you would like to be credited.)

Read speaker bios and see who the auto-test drive participants, exhibitors, advertisers and independent hospitality reception hosts were here.

Questions or comments about the conference? Please contact the SEJ office.

Burlington, VT 2006

Animal tracker Susan Morse, of Keeping Track, speaks to SEJ members in a tract of recently-cut family forest land in Richmond, VT on the Thursday tour, "Keeping a Patchwork Forest from Unravelling." Photo courtesy Peter Thomson.

The Burlington conference, October 25-29, was co-hosted by the University of Vermont in Burlington and Vermont Law School in South Burlington. Day tours included nine field trips over water, mountains and national borders. We heard about how business is going green, and why it's so hard to find out what the government is doing with the environment. Leading print and broadcast reporters offered tips on how to make the climate story come alive. Attendees savored a slow-food feast followed by a fast-foot dance to the tunes of Tammy Fletcher and her band. Pointers from leading nature writers polished off the program. For a complete rundown of events, have a look at the agenda.

Winners of SEJ's fifth annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment were announced. This year's Stolberg Award went to Dale Willman, who in nine years as a member has proven himself indispensable with the variety of volunteer tasks he has performed at the organization's annual meetings.

Read all the conference coverage, including photos, audio and video files, and stories by University of Missouri attendees. In addition, unofficial and independent blogs such as Amy Gahran's SEJ2006 and Jim Bruggers' Watchdog Earth offer views, opinions, podcasts, video clips, photos and much more.

You can also view the speaker bios and see who the exhibitors and independent hospitality reception hosts were.

If you have comments or questions about the conference, the SEJ office would like to hear from you.

Austin, TX 2005

Sunday tour of the Green Roofs R&D site, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. L-R: SEJ members Joe Davis and Candace Page; Steven Windhager, Director, Landscape Restoration, LBJWC; SEJ members Ken Friedman and Tom Henry. Photo courtesy Peter Thomson.

The Austin conference, hosted by The University of Texas at Austin, brought hundreds of SEJ'ers together September 28-October 2 for a mix of entertainment, education, soul-searching and tributes. The conference, SEJ's 15th, provided an opportunity to remember SEJ legend Kevin Carmody, and to comfort reporters caught in hurricanes this year. It was a chance to sample an incredible array of live music, from salsa to blues to country, and to hear presentations ranging from Molly Ivins' salty monologue about politicians she considered under-performers to energy views from top oil company executives, including Lynn Laverty Elsenhans, Executive Vice President of Global Manufacturing, Shell Downstream, to Bill Moyers' thoughts on the future of environmental journalism. Winners of SEJ's fourth annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment were announced. This year's Stolberg Award went to Denny Wilkins, the SEJournal workhorse who has copyedited SEJ material for free, for years. Field trips included the aerial parade bats in downtown Austin and the sights and sounds of the Alamo and Riverwalk in San Antonio, and many more. The conference wrapped up with a memorial service for Carmody, an SEJ leader from the start, who died earlier this year.

MP3 audio files and transcripts:

Web-savvy participants in SEJ's 15th annual conference in Austin have weighed in with (almost) instantaneous online reports and commentary about the five-day extravaganza. Check out Amy Gahran's conference blog; Dick Russell's firsthand account; and three articles in the October 2005 Environment Writer: Strong Start, Strong Finish ... and Strong In Between by Bud Ward, Wide-Ranging Advice Offered at SEJ Conference by Bill Dawson, and SEJ Austin Conference: Impressions by Bob Wyss. Bear in mind, though, that the views expressed on any of the above web sites are the individual authors' and do not reflect the position of SEJ or its members.

Check out the English-language agenda (or la agenda en Español); speaker bios (English and Spanish/Ingles y Español); photo gallery, and exhibitors and independent hospitality events. Please contact the SEJ office with any comments or questions you have about the conference.

Pittsburgh, PA 2004

Conference chair Don Hopey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette swooped in Wednesday evening to illustrate the power of fame and introduce panelists in our opening plenary, 'Celebrity, the Media and the Environment.' Photo by Kenneth Friedman.
Conference chair Don Hopey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette swooped in Wednesday evening to illustrate the power of fame and introduce panelists in our opening plenary, "Celebrity, the Media and the Environment."
Photo by Kenneth Friedman.

SEJ's 14th annual conference, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University, took place October 20-24. On Wednesday, attendees heard a variety of views on the role of celebrities in environmental advocacy, received a surprise welcome to Pittsburgh from Teresa Heinz Kerry, and winners of SEJ's third annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment were announced. Ken Ward Jr. took home the Stolberg Award for distinguished volunteer service. Thursday, ten different tours transported conferees to sites ranging from dams and longwall mining to brownfields and the continent's largest bird-banding operation. In the evening, the venue was the Carnegie Museum of Natural History with a keynote by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and behind-the-scenes peeks at the museum's vast insect collection. Friday and Saturday were spent in sessions at the Carnegie Mellon campus or local mini-tours, hearing from EPA Administrator Michael O. Leavitt and other representatives of government, as well as industry leaders, top scientists, and environmental advocates on a multitude of topics. Saturday night, attendees rocked the boat to No Bad JuJu during a 3-hour cruise on Pittsburgh's rivers. The conference wrapped up Sunday morning at the National Aviary with tours of its many exhibits, and a plenary on Pittsburgh's environmental history. Agenda and speaker bios. Conference coverage. You can order audio tapes (requires free Adobe Acrobat ® reader) of most sessions from Goodkind of Sound. Photo gallery. SEJournal coverage. Conference exhibitors and independent hospitality events. Please contact the SEJ office if you have comments or questions about the conference.

New Orleans, LA 2003

The New Orleans conference held September 10-14, blended incredible live music, tours and the usual fully-loaded roster of panels. Topics ranged from the Dead Zone to Mississippi River history. SEJ's second round of Awards for Reporting on the Environment were distributed. The members honored two 10-year veterans of the SEJ staff: associate director Chris Rigel and conference guru Jay Letto. Mentoring-program co-chairs Orna Izakson and Dawn Stover took home the Stolberg Award for distinguished service. You can order audio tapes of all sessions from Convenient Cassette Service. Session summaries. Speaker bios. Photo gallery. SEJournal coverage. Please contact the SEJ office with your comments or questions about the conference.

Baltimore, MD 2002

A searching examination of the environment beat's "blind spots", and a spirited exchange between two key members of Congress and President George W. Bush's top environmental advisor about politics and policy in the post-9/11 era. Among the more than 30 session topics: Rachel Carson's legacy, ten years after Rio, cancer clusters, "Frankenfish" and an insider's look at the "big ten" environmental groups. Read up on the speakers. Audio tapes of all sessions are available to purchase from Goodkind of Sound — you'll find the session summaries on the agenda to help you decide. View conference photos. SEJournal coverage. If you have questions or comments about the conference, please contact the SEJ office.

Portland, OR 2001

Top Bush administration officials Christine Todd Whitman and Gale Norton outlined new environment and natural resources policies. Two conference sessions considered the impact of terrorist attacks on technology, the environment and environmental reporting. And a diverse group of companies and organizations exhibited innovative and creative solutions to environmental and technological challenges of the 21st century. Speakers. Audio tapes of all sessions are available to purchase from Goodkind of Sound — check the agenda to see which sessions you want to order. Transcript of Christine Todd Whitman's speech. SEJournal coverage. Questions or comments about the conference? Contact the SEJ office.

East Lansing, MI 2000

Cars of the future; a debate between the environmental advisors to presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore; keynote address by David Suzuki; author Bill McKibben. Program. Tapes order form. SEJournal coverage.

Los Angeles, CA 1999

Urban sprawl; Hollywood, the press and the environment, with panelists Ted Danson, Ed Begley Jr., and Keely Shaye Smith; keynote address by David Brower; and a Sunday morning talk by Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams. Program. Tapes order form. Conference photos. SEJournal coverage.

Chattanooga, TN 1998

A smokestack city cleans itself up; revisiting the snail darter saga; addresses by Ted Turner and Sylvia Earle. Program. SEJournal coverage.

Tucson, AZ 1997

The border environment; four years after NAFTA; an address by Stewart Udall; Biosphere II; and remembering Edward Abbey. Program. Coverage by University of Arizona students. SEJournal coverage.

St. Louis, MO 1996

The environment in the 104th Congress; and the doomsayers square off against the naysayers in a lunchtime plenary. Program. SEJournal coverage.

Boston, MA 1995

Vice President Al Gore addresses the conference; naturalist E.O. Wilson; authors Richard Rhodes and Jonathan Weiner. SEJournal coverage.

Utah 1994

Writers William Least Heat Moon and Terry Tempest Williams; Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary; EPA Administrator Carol Browner. SEJournal coverage.

Durham, NC 1993

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt; White House Office of Environmental Policy director Katy McGinty; a plenary on "backlash" reporting. SEJournal coverage.

Ann Arbor, MI 1992

The auto industry; Lois Gibbs of the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste; environmental beat veterans talk about their experiences. SEJournal coverage.

Boulder, CO 1991

SEJ's first national conference, with sessions on using computers to analyze environmental data; reporting risk; the society's first elections. SEJournal coverage.

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