This week we have some news of our own! The OptOut Media Foundation is excited to announce that Amanda Magnani is the new editor of OptOut Climate.
Amanda is a Brazilian journalist and photographer focused on social and environmental issues. After living in seven countries, she returned to Brazil to dedicate herself to documenting the diverse realities that make up her homeland. She approaches her work with a decolonial perspective, and she always seeks to collaborate with the subjects of the narrative. Her work has been featured in National Geographic, Al Jazeera, The New Humanitarian, BBC Brasil, and Folha de São Pualo, among other publications.
OptOut Climate was our first vertical. Our goal is to elevate financially independent news content about the climate, the environment, and energy, offering news consumers a media ecosystem free from the conflicts of interest and fossil fuel advertising that plague corporate and legacy climate media. We are grateful for our climate program's founding editor, Cristian Salazar, who built the program and recruited more than one dozen climate-focused news outlets for the network.
OptOut network members that cover climate issues include Currently, Drilled, Earth Island Journal, Grist, Heated, High Country News, and The Narwhal.
Amanda is a master in Journalism, Media and Globalization from Aarhus University, the Danish School of Media and Journalism, and Charles University, and a specialist in Public Policy and Gender Justice from the Latin American Council of Social Sciences. In 2021, she was awarded Climate Tracker’s Online Climate Justice Fellowship to report on COP26 and was selected to be a part of the Solutions Journalism Network mentorship cohort.
We are thrilled to bring on Amanda and her talent, perspective, passion, and creativity. I have no doubt that she will do great things for OptOut Climate and independent climate journalism in general.
Earlier this year, Amanda received a grant from the Pulitzer Center Rainforest Journalism Fund to develop her project, “Seeds for a sustainable future: Hyperlocal solutions from the Indigenous communities of Serra de Lua," a multimedia project that will document how Wapixana and Macuxi people in Roraima, Brazil, embrace their ancestry by protecting the future of the Amazon forest. As part of this grant, Amanda will be creating video for OptOut!
“I’m excited and honored to be the new climate editor at OptOut News," Amanda told me. "I definitely have big shoes to fill after Cristian, who became a really good friend over the past months, but I definitely feel up for the challenge!
"I love the idea of working alongside so many amazing independent outlets that share our values and mission," she said. "But I also love the idea of shaking things up and bringing our audience a Global South perspective. The word that guides me is community, so be ready to walk with me every step of the way as we build this one together.”
I hope you'll understand that we don't have a typical climate newsletter this time as we onboard Amanda, but stay tuned for her first edition in two weeks!
Instead of our regular newsletter, we just unlocked a full episode of OptOutcast. Cristian interviewed Christian Downie, a political scientist and professor at the Australian National University, where he researches climate and energy politics. He is also the author of Business Battles in the U.S. Energy Sector. His recent paper with co-author Robert Brulle in the journal Climatic Change traces how fossil fuel trade associations in the U.S. are investing billions of dollars on political activities.
OptOut Climate spoke with Downie about how these trade groups obstruct climate action.
Listen to the full episode here or in the OptOut app.
The OptOut Media Foundation (EIN: 85-2348079) is a nonprofit charity with a mission to educate the public about current events and help sustain a diverse media ecosystem by promoting and assisting independent news outlets and, in doing so, advance democracy and social justice.
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