Federal FOIA System Begins Evolving Via New Online Portal

October 3, 2012–While it still has a long way to go to reach its potential, the new "FOIAonline" web portal benefits environmental reporters now. Submit and track FOIA requests online to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and more.

EPA’s ECHO Database: Your Two-faced Best Friend

September 15, 2012–

SEJournal Summer/Fall 2012, Vol. 22 No. 2,3

September 15, 2012–In this issue: How Carson's Silent Spring shapes modern environmentalism; Florida's lost wildlife highways; an interview with San Antonio Express-News enviro-adventure reporter Colin McDonald; bridging the journalism/science divide; SEJ Awards winners; EPA's ECHO database, your two-faced best friend; and more.

TOOLBOX: EPA Environmental Impact Statement Database

September 5, 2012–If you are hunting stories — or useful background for a story under way — you may find a useful tool in EPA's online, searchable Environmental Impact Statement database.

Database on Environmental Treaties an Aid for Reporters on Environmental Stories

August 22, 2012–There are well over a thousand binational or multinational environmental agreements, usually technical and obscure. However, environmental reporters would do well to know about them — to shed light on local stories and to find national or international news. Here's help.

Will Security Lapse Bring Another EPA Data Blackout?

August 22, 2012–More than a decade ago, on February 17, 2000, the entire EPA website was taken down for two weeks because of data security concerns raised by the House Energy Committee. There are faint hints that such events may be in the offing again.

COOL TOOL: Poligraft Helps Journos Sniff out Slanted Sources

June 13, 2012–The system was developed by the Sunlight Foundation, the National Institute on Money in State Politics, and the Center for Responsive Politics. Just paste in some text or the Web address of an online article, and within seconds Poligraft supplies much of the missing context.

TOOLBOX: Data Journalism Handbook Released

May 16, 2012–Environmental reporters with ambitions to do investigative projects using databases will find an enormously rich collection of ideas, tips, examples, and tools in the new book released by the Open Knowledge Foundation and the European Journalism Centre.

Cool Data Tools: EPA Releases NEPAssist Mapper

May 2, 2012–For reporters wanting to pry open the worm-cans of local environmental stories, EPA's new GIS tool lets you map Environmental Impact Statements project information against a rich backdrop: layer after layer of geographic, demographic, environmental, and economic context. And, it can be used in conjunction with EJView, EPA's environmental justice online mapping tool.

Web Tool Brings Documents to Life

April 15, 2012–Read this Reporter's Toolbox excerpt from the Spring issue of SEJournal: Amanda Hickman explains how the web-based tool DocumentCloud, founded in 2009 with a Knight News Challenge grant, lets journalists engage with the public and knowledgeable sources. Use it to analyze, annotate, and publish the documents behind your reporting.