SEJournal looks ahead to key issues in the coming year with this "2019 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment" special report. Stay tuned as we continue to add elements to the report up through and beyond its formal launch Jan. 25 at an annual roundtable, organized by the Society of Environmental Journalists with the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
The new year will likely mean subpoenas on EPA’s FOIA response policies, as a Democrat takes the chair in the House Oversight Committee amid charges the agency is choking off politically sensitive record requests. And are new laws in a dozen states making coverage of pipeline protests a felony? That, plus air emission exemptions for animal feedlot operators and data on illegal fishing. All in the latest issue of the WatchDog.
The Trump administration’s “war on science” is playing out not just at the EPA, with its controversial proposed “secret science” rule, but at federal agencies throughout the government. This special TipSheet lays out the conflict, and offers guidance on how to turn the overarching issue into a story with character and a regional or local sense of place. Plus, see more in our ongoing 2019 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment.
Every presidential administration tries to influence the press — and sometimes can even stand in the way of reporters doing their jobs. But no previous administration has ever labeled reporters the “enemy of the people,” as President Trump has done, over and over again.
From the U.S. EPA to Interior, SEJ has challenged government attempts to block press freedom; joined hundreds of other news organizations across the country to stand up to Trump’s bullying; confronted dozens of challenges to press freedom in recent years; and jumped in to defend journalists reporting on Standing Rock, photographers working in National Forests and publications awaiting FOIA requests.
SEJ is proud to defend the crucial work of environmental reporters. With your continued support, we’ll keep speaking out in 2019. Read more and please give now.
"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi appointed Rep. Kathy Castor on Friday to lead a select committee on climate change when Democrats retake the majority in the new year."
"Trump administration officials took steps on Friday to crack down on transparency at one of the largest US federal agencies, proposing a slew of changes that could make it harder for the public and media to obtain records of agency dealings."
This year, long-time SEJ member Meera Subramanian joined our board of directors to give back for the many ways SEJ has benefited her freelance career. As Meera puts it, "Earlier this month, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said: 'We are in deep trouble with climate change. Climate change is running faster than we are, and we must catch up sooner rather than later, before it is too late.' Part of catching up is supporting the organizations that support the journalists covering climate change and so many other important environmental issues around the world." Read more and please give now.
On January 25 in Washington DC, SEJ and the Wilson Center presented the 7th annual Journalists' Guide to Energy and Environment, where top reporters looked ahead at 2019's biggest stories to a packed house.
"As the result of a Freedom of Information suit brought by The Guardian, the FBI has revealed it maintained an open investigation of 350.org — the climate activism group founded by Bill McKibben — and its members as part of an ongoing anti-terrorism campaign."
It's not often that a new genre of science writing opens up for freelancers. But writer Dan Bloom suggests there's a growing market for freelancers who want to write about climate in the form known as “cli-fi,” a new dystopian fiction that focuses on future impacts of climate change. Freelance Files editor Karen Schaefer invited him to share his perspective on the emerging genre.
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