New York Times Forming "Environmental SWAT Team"

On Thursday, The New York Times will launch a new, crack environmental reporting unit that will pull in eight specialized reporters from the Science, National, Metro, Foreign, and Business desks in a bid for richer, more prominent coverage.

CJR received a copy of an e-mail that the Times's executive editor, Bill Keller, sent to staff in mid-December announcing the newsroom reorganization, in which he describes the paper's rationale:

The Times has a long and distinguished record of covering the complex of issues loosely described as "the environment:" climate change, pollution, endangered land and species, the husbanding of the earth's resources and all the related questions of business, politics, lifestyle and health. For some time we've been plotting a way to pull together the various reporters who work on aspects of the subject, under an editor who will wake up every day thinking of ways to push the story forward, to give it greater energy and focus.

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