The Arctic Times Project is an independent, nonprofit group of journalists dedicated to shedding light on the profound economic, geo-political and cultural changes taking place in the Arctic region as a result of climate change. As the steadily warming environment uncovers vast stores of natural resources and opens new shipping lanes between Europe and Asia, major world powers are jockeying for position and cultures long left to themselves are facing life-altering choices. Yet because the region is so remote and few mainstream news organizations have the resources to cover it, most of these changes are unfolding out of view for most people around the world.
We came together to address this need for coverage with a unique proposition. We formed a small consortium of award-winning reporters, photographers and videographers from around the world to raise money and work collaboratively to produce in-depth, on-location stories and films exploring these complex issues. We work project by project, gathering news together and then producing journalism for as many major international outlets as we can. Our model is different but it’s working. You can read more about it in this article from Harvard University’s NeimanLab.
One note about our non-profit status: We are registered as a 501(c)3 by the U.S. Treasury and, as such, are committed to being an independent source of in-depth reporting and commentary. We have no axe to grind and will not accept funding from any entity that does. Our mission to take advantage of our extensive contacts with media outlets globally to assure the widest distribution for its output and will engage with universities and other educational institutions to share our work in academic and professional settings worldwide. ATP’s ultimate objective is to produce a body of work that can help shape public policy and private sector response. The final record will be a lasting resource for understanding one of the most important issues of our times.
ph© Angu Motzfeldt
Michael Oneal is an award-winning business and finance writer who has reported in China, India, Europe and throughout the United States. As a senior reporter for the Chicago Tribune he covered a broad array of subjects ranging from global economics to the takeover and bankruptcy of his former employer, Tribune Co. He was a member of the six-person reporting team that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Journalism for a series of stories on unsafe toys that helped focus public awareness on the issue, leading to major changes at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Oneal was an editor and reporter for BusinessWeek magazine for nine years and was co-founder of SmartMoney.com, a personal finance Website that won the National Magazine Award for design. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, SmartMoney Magazine, Golf Digest and Corriere della Sera.
Marzio Mian is an award-winning correspondent and former deputy editor in chief for the weekly Io Donna of Corriere della Sera, Italy’s leading newspaper. Mian is a contributor for the weekly Sette of Corriere della Sera, GQ, Il Giornale and Rai, Italy’s national public broadcasting company. He has covered r.g. the collapse of communism, the Balkan wars, the enlargement of Europe, four American presidential campaigns, realized reportage from 48 countries and interviewed many of the world’s most powerful women. For the past 5 years he has focused on Arctic issues, urban developments and post-industrial metropolitan conversion. Mian is part of The River Journal Project, a multimedia journalism project that reports on current issues while exploring the greatest rivers of the world. Mian was granted in 2013 the Marco Luchetta International Award for an investigative story on infanticides in South India and in 2011 the “Amerigo Vespucci” prize awarded to Italian journalists who have best reported on American politics and culture. In 2001/2002 he obtained the “Knight Wallace Journalism Fellows” in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Maurice Walsh is a historian and award-winning journalist. As a foreign correspondent, he has lived in Managua, Santiago and Mexico City and has reported for the BBC from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the United States and Europe. His work for the BBC includes documentaries on the role of oil in American foreign policy, the “oil curse” in Africa and the growing military rivalry between the US and China. He is the author of Bitter Freedom: Ireland in a Revolutionary World: 1918-1923 and The News from Ireland: Foreign Correspondents and the Irish Revolution. His essays, reviews and reportage have appeared in Granta, The Guardian, the London Review of Books, the Dublin Review, the New Statesman, and many other newspapers in the UK, Ireland and the US. He was Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan in 2001, Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford in 2010/11 and holds the Ben Bradlee Fellowship in Journalism at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin for 2017/18. He teaches at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Patrick Egan is a longtime community journalist based in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, US. He helps with Arctic Times production and research. He owned and published two small daily newspapers, receiving a William Allan White award for excellence in editorial writing. His newspapers achieved multiple Associated Press first place awards for reporting and photography. He has written for native American publications.
