This week’s Writer Wednesday features communications pro Beau Brockett!
Based in Lansing, Michigan, Beau serves as the communications manager at the Michigan Environmental Council, where he helps translate complex environmental policy into stories that connect with communities across the state. Read more about him below!
What inspired you to pursue a career in journalism and communications?
I think it was a love and care for my community — and a joy in being an integral part of it. I think journalism allowed me to have both. Now, in nonprofit communications, the community I'm writing for has changed, and how I write has changed, but I'm still writing for a community nonetheless.
What is your favorite part of the writing process?
I love the second (and sometimes third) drafts. One of the biggest barriers to me as a writer is getting started. But the best reward is taking all that mess I've put on the page and making something out of it.
How does storytelling play a role in your work at the Michigan Environmental Council?
The Environmental Council works on a lot of environmental bills and laws at the Michigan Capitol. Storytelling allows me and others like me to take those complicated parts of government and show folks what it means to them personally.
How do you break down complex environmental topics so they connect with everyday readers and the media?
I think back to something I think I learned in a journalism class: accuracy and precision. Accuracy is how close something I write is to how it might be written in, for example, a law. Precision could be me taking that law and explaining it in a way without all these jargony words. Precision could also be me connecting that law to a personal story or a metaphor that's easily understandable. I want what I write to be accurate enough to be strongly factual but precise enough to actually mean something to most folks.
What has your work at the Michigan Environmental Council taught you about the power of communication in environmental advocacy?
There are some sorts of issues and ways we talk about them that really hit home to so many people across the state — things like chemical pollution and recycling and land protection. Fortunately, we can talk about many environmental issues in these sorts of ways. The challenge is letting go of other ways of talking about a certain issue when around certain people.
For example, let's say a ton of sludge from a factory is being dumped in a pit near where many people live. Some people may need to hear that this event is an "environmental injustice." Others might hate to hear that phrase but instead might become super concerned if we say there was a "chemical spill in a neighborhood" or that "a corporation dumped a ton of chemicals into a community." All phrases are talking about the exact same issue; you just have to know when to use which.
What is your favorite non-writing hobby?'
I was going to say reading, but that seems a bit too close to writing for me to share! Instead I'll say that I've rediscovered my grade school love for the Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game. I don't collect cards anymore, but I do play a game on my Switch. The game's changed so much!
Follow the Michigan Environmental Council on Instagram at @michiganenvironmentalcouncil and read more about the nonprofit at environmentalcouncil.org.
— Interview by Jenna Hausmann