By Joe Arney
An important part of being a good enterprise reporter is a willingness to keep digging, even when the soil seems shallow.
Sometimes literally.
A news feature on agrivoltaics鈥攖he practice of growing crops beneath solar panels鈥攖hat Gabe Allen and Tyler Hickman not only helped validate both students鈥� interest in environmental journalism, it won them Best Scalable Innovation in Planet Forward鈥檚 2023 Storyfest competition.
鈥淥ur instructor, Erica Hunzinger, talked about the importance of following your curiosity,鈥� Allen said. 鈥淪he encouraged us to go down this rabbit hole, even though it was weeks of digging before we knew we had a hook.鈥�
Storyfest showcases student work that seeks to understand and illuminate innovations for how to best care for the planet. As part of the students鈥� win, they spent five days aboard a polar vessel in Iceland, learning how the country is addressing conservation alongside a team of naturalists, photo instructors and others.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e digging and you hit the wall, that just means that you have to go around it or go over it鈥攆ind a new angle.
鈥擳yler Hickman
It was a valuable experience for two graduate students who chose to study journalism at CMCI thanks to the focus and opportunities made possible through its Center for Environmental Journalism.
鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to inform people first and foremost, but through these human interest stories, you鈥檙e also showing the impact these stories can create, and how they can bring about change,鈥� Hickman said.
For the Sun feature, Allen and Hickman visited Jack鈥檚 Solar Garden, in Longmont, to share the story of founder Byron Kominek鈥檚 three-year battle to get a solar installation on his farm. The students鈥� persistence was rewarded when, deep into their investigation, a bill to expand agrivoltaics was proposed. Gov. Jared Polis signed it into law in May.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e digging and you hit the wall, that just means that you have to go around it or go over it鈥攆ind a new angle,鈥� Hickman said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 something all our professors really drilled into us.鈥�
Hunzinger, also public health collaborations editor at The Associated Press, called the pair 鈥渄riven and ambitious.鈥�
鈥淵ou could see their growth in their in-class questions and discussions and in their assignments,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen these two decided to pair up for the final project, I knew we were in for a curious and thoroughly reported treat.鈥�
For Allen, the opportunity to do enterprise-level reporting was a major motivator to attend grad school.
鈥淚t was fun to really dig into that piece鈥攖o spend a month talking to so many different people, from politicians and scientists to the farmer on the ground,鈥� he said.听