The Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy publishes leaked copies of Congressional Research Service research papers. Here are a few recent ones of use to environmental journalists.
A promising new resource has begun helping reporters trying to use the Freedom of Information Act to pry loose government information relevant to their stories. The "FOIA Wiki" is a collaborative and explanatory collection of information meant to help you.
Investigative journalism is hardly about paper documents anymore. The cutting edge today is more likely to be requests for emails, as well as text messages, chats and other electronic communications such as Slack. This big challenge was front and center at the recent meeting of the National Freedom of Information Coalition.
Patience, attention to detail, and public-records requests can still get you a bombshell story on the environmental beat. One recently tied coal and oil company megabucks to Republican attorneys general challenging the Clean Power Plan (CPP) in court.
"A remote village on Alaska's northwest coast has begun a reverse tourism campaign. Residents want visitors to stay away. Pacific walrus by the thousands in recent years have come ashore in early fall near the Inupiat village of Point Lay, including about 6,000 last week, and people have dropped in, hoping to see a marine mammal phenomenon brought on by climate change and disappearing summer sea ice in the Chukchi Sea."
"Trenton Public Schools have found elevated levels of lead in more than three-quarters of its buildings."
"At least tens of thousands of chickens, hogs and other livestock are feared dead in floodwaters that washed over factory farms and towns in eastern North Carolina following Hurricane Matthew."
"Shark-fishing houses are banding together to fight a bipartisan bill that would ban the trade of shark fins."
Advertisement 
