Reporter's Toolbox

Reporter's Toolbox banner

 

Reporter's Toolbox is a regular column focused on the world of data journalism, with an emphasis on data tools, techniques and database resources that journalists can use to improve their environmental reporting.

For questions and comments, or to suggest future Reporter's Toolboxes, email Toolbox Editor Joseph A. Davis at sejournaleditor@sej.org.

Journalists can receive Reporter's Toolbox free by subscribing to the SEJournal Online, the digital news magazine of the Society of Environmental Journalists. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here.


April 20, 2022

  • Updated data on U.S. emissions offers environmental journalists an opportunity to chase down local climate change news, whether from a range of sectors and industries, or from 8,000 major facilities, with tools that allow a county-by-county view. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox takes a look at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s annual release of the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks.

April 6, 2022

  • Environmental journalists trying to track potential problem polluters have a valuable new tool — a notification service that creates weekly alerts on the enforcement or compliance status of facilities and companies across a range of environmental laws and customizable categories. Track geography, type of emissions, industrial category and more. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox has more on the recently launched ECHO Notify service.

March 23, 2022

  • Each year brings another update of the Toxics Release Inventory database. And each year, it gets ignored or downplayed by too many news outlets. As the new Reporter’s Toolbox points out, not only does the latest iteration of TRI have some notable updates but it also offers plenty of room for localizable stories. Here’s how to mine the resource.

March 9, 2022

  • The Biden administration, which has been making environmental justice a top goal, has released a new screening tool that complements existing environmental equity databases, but with especially strong attention to a range of categories like clean transit, clean water, housing issues, life expectancy and more (although, interestingly, not race). The latest Reporter’s Toolbox has a guide to the new screening tool.

February 23, 2022

  • As extreme precipitation, intensified by climate change, becomes a more frequent story for environmental journalists, recent coverage points to important holes in the rain data bucket. But the latest Reporter’s Toolbox identifies some useful government and commercial data resources that track and predict rainfall and offers suggestions on using the data they provide.

February 9, 2022

  • A key federal database on toxic chemicals, kneecapped under the Trump administration, is now back. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week resurfaced the ChemView service, and explains the background law that fuels its data, while offering tips on how to make smart use of the database as it expands in coming years.

January 12, 2022

  • Tens of thousands of dams around the United States provide important functions — but also represent critical environment or public safety risks. Now, one central resource to help environmental journalists cover these structures has been improved in important ways. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox walks you through the main changes to the National Inventory of Dams, and points out some lingering weaknesses.

December 8, 2021

  • As awareness grows about how pollution can cause certain cancers, it’s smart to look beyond cancer risk and also explore available information about actual cancer cases. Reporter’s Toolbox explains how extensive data collected regularly in state-level cancer “registries” can take your coverage on the pollution-public health connection to another level. Plus, avoiding pitfalls in reporting possible clusters.

November 17, 2021

November 3, 2021

  • Public data around environmental issues has been a thing at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for decades, ... except when it hasn’t. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox looks at how data transparency is back in fashion under the Biden EPA, and the many ways that environmental journalists can build on available datasets for their coverage.

Pages