Health

As part of our 2023 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment special report, we’ve got highlights from last week’s reporter panel on the year ahead, led by #SEJ2023 conference co-chair Tom Michael (pictured, left). The focus was largely on the U.S. West, where challenges abound over issues like equitable siting of renewable energy infrastructure, regulating natural gas, managing wildfires and addressing the health consequences of climate-driven heat waves. Read our account, plus check out the full 2023 Guide.

With wintry conditions still present in much of the country, there’s an important local story for environmental reporters to chase. No, not climate change this time. It’s salt. Road salt can end up in bodies of water, damaging the environment and risking human health. TipSheet offers a dash of background and a good dose of questions to ask, plus story ideas and resources to flavor your reporting with.

In our annual analysis of what’s ahead on the environment beat in 2023, there are some things to count on: worsening climate disasters and continued politicking over energy transitions, but also regulatory action on greenhouse gas emissions (not to mention on “forever chemicals”). Other things are less clear: environmental rulings by a conservative U.S. Supreme Court, energy impacts of war in Europe and the effectiveness of COP28 and treaty talks on plastic pollution. Read the full overview and get more in our “2023 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment” special report.

Iconic critters like salmon, orca and wolves. Climate controversies like natural gas greenwashing and carbon auctions. And wildfire fallout like “smoke-a-geddon.” These are just some of the wide array of stories worth covering as environmental journalists scan Cascadia, the huge area encompassing Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and stretching from Alaska to Utah. This special TipSheet, part of our 2023 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment, outlines top issues in the region, offering insights, resources and story angles.

Nearly two-thirds of the world’s rivers are impeded by dams and we keep building them in our quest for cleaner and greener sources of electricity. But as podcast producer Farha Akhtar learned while producing a recent episode, these monumental structures are having a profound impact on our planet and catastrophic consequences for many Indigenous people.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set in motion a long-overdue requirement to update a key Clean Air Act rule involving fine particulate air pollution, or PM 2.5. The latest TipSheet reviews PM 2.5’s health harms and its checkered regulatory history, while offering story ideas and key resources on how to tell the story locally.

If you’re looking to engage key constituencies for your journalism — whether editors, sources, students or people who have been marginalized — a new set of short videos from award-winning journalists (like KESQ's Angela Chen, at left) can serve as a helpful resource. Inside Story has a roadmap of how to make smart use of these video nuggets to, for instance, convince newsroom powerbrokers to give you more time and support for ambitious stories.