How we did it

The stories, website and multimedia presentations in this project were reported, written and produced by 10 Medill graduate students chosen as McCormick Foundation scholars, which enabled them to spend three months in Washington and to travel domestically and internationally.

They interviewed more than 200 current and former national security officials and experts, most of them on the record, and reviewed scores of official documents and reports.

During the reporting phase, the students used social media to create a community of those interested in the intersection of national security and climate change, informing them of their reporting through Tweets and blog posts as well as an e-newsletter.

They used DocumentCloud to organize and analyze records and reports. They also created several databases of information relevant to the various story topics and an intranet to facilitate group collaboration.