In the first of a two-part WatchDog TipSheet, we explore the relationship between journalist and anonymous leaker. How to find whistleblowers, build their trust and establish groundrules that work for you. Also, when not to rely on anonymous leaks. Next week: Security, documentation and the law around leaks.
Fire season is back, if it ever went away. And it's no longer a natural disaster story limited in geographic scope. Now it's a nationwide U.S. story touching on climate, money, politics, zoning, pollution and more. The latest Tipsheet runs down key information sources, plus what make a good peg for your local wildfire reporting.
"Ivanka Trump is planning to meet next week with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt about the Paris climate change agreement."
"Oil prices collapsed on Thursday to their lowest since late November as investor worries about the world's stubbornly persistent glut of crude erased most of the gains that followed last year's OPEC's output cut."
"As the Environmental Protection Agency proceeds with a large-scale update of its website, its climate change site has been taken down, pending review. But several climate scientists contacted by The Post argue that this is unnecessary."
"The most biologically diverse waterway in America is in bad shape. The Indian River Lagoon is repeatedly being choked with oxygen-robbing algae, its surface increasingly dotted with thousands of dead fish, manatees, birds and other creatures."
"The state’s $300 million fund to get coastal homeowners to relocate inland isn’t working."
"One of the coal industry's biggest boosters has joined U.S. EPA. Christian Palich, who started this week as a deputy associate administrator in the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations, is the former president of the Ohio Coal Association."
"Potentially harmful human-caused noise pollution affects nearly two-thirds of all protected areas in the United States, according to a report released on Thursday."
"The wind power industry just chalked up its strongest first quarter in eight years. Tax credits play an important role." "Every two and a half hours, workers installed a new wind turbine in the United States during the first quarter of 2017, marking the strongest start for the wind industry in eight years, according to a new report by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) released on May 2."
