In the increasingly crowded world of Web magazines
focused on the environment, it’s getting hard for the green at
heart to decide what to bookmark. Which is why the founders of
Grist magazine have injected something rare into
their coverage of the often depressing retreat of the natural
world: humor.
“We’ve tried to cut through the
stereotype of doom-and-gloom environmentalism by pairing
provocative environmental journalism with humor,” says
publisher/editor Chip Giller.
The self-described
“beacon in the smog” was launched in the spring of 1999 as part of
Denis Hayes’ Earth Day Network, a nonprofit coordinating body for
worldwide Earth Day activities. The Seattle-based publication
includes an attractively presented mix of original news reports,
commentary, cartoons and features along with summaries of top
stories from other publications. Contributors include everyone from
researcher Lester Brown and columnist Donella Meadows, to
actor/activist Ed Begley Jr, and longtime HCN
writer Lisa Jones.
Giller and his managing
editor, Lisa Hymas, are veterans of Greenwire, the Washington
D.C.-based environmental news service. One of the first things they
did was start a daily electronic newsfeed – the Daily
Grist – which, like Greenwire, feeds environmentalists a
steady stream of environmental news from around the
globe.
But the Daily Grist is
free, and its headlines are a daily odyssey into the world of pop
culture and puns. A recent Daily Grist featured
the headlines, “More Bangkok for your Buick,” “A Slade of Hand,”
and “On Fraudway.”
Giller says 30,000 people have
signed up for the Daily Grist, including one
woman who wrote, “I have a warped sense of admiration for the
person who does the headlines. They are brilliant in a childlike
sort of way.”
Check out Grist
at www.gristmagazine.com.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Tickling the green funny bone.
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