AP, etc: A Texas marsh that BP paid for.
Volunteers in La. re-plant a salt marsh
An AP reporter in Texas, Ramit Plushnick-Masti, filed versions of pretty much the same story twice this week. The distinctly different tone and impact are instructive.
The basic news is shared. The Gulf Coast has been in trouble for years as erosion swept away marshes starved of sediment once supplied by natural streams and rivers. Now with money extracted from BP after it spilled oil over lot of the same marshes, new ones are being built.
The difference in these stories is that the first one emerged from a public meeting by a consortium using the money to rebuild marshes. Okay story, but dry and distant as stories from meetings often are. The second is much more satisfying. Plushnick-Masti got herself a boat ride out to see one of the marshes and came back with a vivid, atmospheric yarn that people won’t so easily forget. I haven’t tried to reach her to ask exactly how this one-two punch came together, but it sure looks like an example why it’s worth going to meetings, dull as they are. You might find somebody willing to get you, and your readers, a road trip that brings the news to life.
- AP – Ramit Plushnick-Masti (Jun 27) : Task force: Restoring sediment key to Gulf revival. (Jun 30): Texas wetland restoration could be model for Gulf ; The first talks abstractly about dirt and restoring it to a useful job – the second brings to readers the sight and sound of wildlife chattering and flittering about in the result.
Plushnick-Masti is a busy tweeter on this and other topics. Among other things she shares with followers is the link to the video she shot while on the field assignment.
Also on Roughly the Same News:
- Houston Chronicle – Matthew Tresaugue: Dirt: The key to restoring wetlands, task force says ;
Grist for the Mill: EPA Press Release ; RestoreTheGulf.gov Press Release ;
- Charlie Petit
