WIRE Wants to Fill a Gap in Environmental Reporting

Photo by Gwen Weustink on Unsplash

It’s hard to think of a more iconic print magazine than National Geographic. As a child spending afternoons in my school’s library, I would flip through its glossy pages and be immersed in jungles, deserts, and tundra. Not to age myself, but this was before Instagram’s Discover feed or Twitter’s endless scroll. It was magazines like National Geographic that offered me a portal into the vast unknown.  

And so I view the collapse of National Geographic as both a minor personal tragedy and indicative of the current media landscape. Last year, the outlet, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, laid off all of its remaining staff writers (this was part of a broader round of cuts at Disney). Though the monthly magazine is still sent to subscribers – with articles authored largely by freelancers – it’s no longer in newsstands.  Like many similar cases, it was a gradual decline, but that doesn’t make the cuts any less painful. Three media workers, however, are helping keep the original spirit of National Geographic alive through a new venture: WIRE (Wildlife Investigative Reporters & Editors), a journalism nonprofit organization. 

In the fall of 2022, Rachael Bale was let go by National Geographic as part of a round of layoffs. Bale contributed to Wildlife Watch, an investigative reporting project dedicated to covering wildlife crime and exploitation that is supported by the nonprofit the National Geographic Society, for her entire seven years at National Geographic. She was also the executive editor of the Animals desk from 2019 to 2022. During her time at the outlet, she investigated cheetah trafficking and pangolin poaching. 

After Bale’s layoff, Rene Ebersole, an investigative science, health, and environmental journalist who has worked for National Geographic in the past, called Bale and told her: “this stinks, we should start something.” 

“Nobody could afford to do those stories like National Geographic could. I was really dismayed when Rachael was laid off,” Ebersole told Study Hall.