![]() |
Meet SEJ member Carey Gillam! Carey has more than 30 years of experience covering general and corporate news, including 17 years as a senior correspondent for Reuters international news service. At Reuters, she specialized in coverage of industrial agriculture, including the products and practices of the world’s largest agrochemical companies and the related health and environmental impacts. Gillam additionally works as a contributing writer for The Guardian, and earlier this year she helped launch a nonprofit journalism initiative called The New Lede, where she serves as Managing Editor. This fall, Gillam will be teaching an environmental journalism course at the University of Kansas.
She is a member of SEJ's Freedom of Information Task Force and is also a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Carey has written two books. She is the author of "Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science," an expose of corporate corruption in agriculture. The book won the coveted Rachel Carson Book Award from the 2018 SEJ Awards as well as two other literary awards. Her second book, released in March 2021, is a narrative legal thriller titled "The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man's Search for Justice." She has also contributed chapters for a text book about environmental journalism and another about pesticide use in Africa. Gillam was asked to testify before the European Parliament in 2017 about her research, and was an invited speaker at the World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg, France in 2019. She also has been a keynote and/or panel speaker at events and universities throughout North America, Australia, The Netherlands, Brussels and France. She has been quoted as an expert on issues of industrial agriculture and corporate corruption by several news outlets, including the New York Times, BBC, CBS and Fox Business News.
When asked how SEJ membership has made her job easier, Carey said, "SEJ has been such a valuable resource in many ways. I have turned to the SEJ Listservs to ask for guidance on thorny issues, help finding a source, partnering on a story, career advice, wrangling a comment or interview from the EPA, etc. SEJ provides members with a talented community of professionals that I trust, rely on and learn from when reporting important stories." Join Carey at SEJ today!
See some of Carey's work for The Guardian:
- "'A Worldwide Public Health Threat': Rob Bilott on His 20-Year Fight Against Forever Chemicals," May 1, 2022.
- "'We Want It Back to What It Was': The US Village Blighted by Toxic Waste," April 26, 2022.
- "Revealed: More Than 120,000 US Sites Feared To Handle Harmful PFAS 'Forever' Chemicals," October 17, 2021.
- "Revealed: Monsanto Owner and US Officials Pressured Mexico To Drop Glyphosate Ban," February 16, 2021.
- "'There's a Red Flag Here': How an Ethanol Plant Is Dangerously Polluting a US Village," January 10, 2021.
- "Revealed: Monsanto Predicted Crop System Would Damage US Farms," March 30, 2020.
- More.
Find Carey:
Twitter @CareyGillam
Facebook /CareyGillamAuthor
Web www.careygillam.com
Members: we want to put the #SEJSpotlight on you! Sign up here to participate.
Not yet a member? Join us today!
>> Back to the main #SEJSpotlight page.