DURHAM, N.C. - When Jay Hamilton was in the market for a new hybrid car last summer, Google knew it.
As he scoured the Internet for the best deal, Google’s algorithms connected him to advertisements for hybrids. Now Hamilton, a professor of economics and public policy at Duke University, argues that similar targeted advertisements could provide a new funding model for public affairs journalism - including coverage of climate change.
The author of All the News that’s Fit To Sell: How the Market Turns Information into News, Hamilton was a headline speaker at the Society of Environmental Journalists’s annual conference last fall in Madison, Wi. The video here hints to the provocative nature of Hamilton’s ideas and presentations, as he presented them at SEJ.
Hamilton recently spoke from his campus office, about why it’s challenging to fund climate coverage and the role that new media can play in helping to change that situation.
Author
Sara Peach is a freelance multimedia environmental journalist living in Carrboro, N.C. Reach her at sara @ yaleclimatemediaforum.org.