Three major journalism groups held a joint convention in Chicago September 15-17, 2014, which included a panel discussion on Obama administration secrecy. News industry leaders used the occasion to point out that the Obama administration's deeds and practices did not match its claims of transparency.
There are many good investigative stories to be done about natural gas pipelines in your local area. You can get some maps and data about these pipelines if you try. Hard. The government is not going to help too much. One resource is the National Pipeline Mapping System (NPMS), which allows the general public to see geodata on a county-by-county basis.
As a nationwide newspaper chain probed safety threats posed to the public by gas pipelines, an Alabama court imposed prior restraint on the Montgomery Advertiser, to prevent it from publishing the Alabama Gas Corporation's safety plan, citing homeland security and trade secrets. Now a judge has ruled that the court erred in granting a temporary restraining order.
The U.S. Forest Service is seeking to harden rules that would require a journalist to get a permit and pay a fee of up to $1,500 in order to report inside a federal wilderness. [Update -- 9/25/14: Forest Service Chief Tidwell says media don't need permit]
"Ellesmere Island, Nunavut — It’s August, and there’s snow on the ground. The six-week summer has already passed; our 24-hour daylight will drop to 16 in just a month’s time. Small, brittle leaves crunch underfoot as I walk across tundra that’s already beginning to freeze for the long winter ahead. The top of the world is a cold place. I’ve been at a field camp here in the Canadian high Arctic gathering climate change data from one of the most remote and isolated regions of the planet. It is barren, wild and beautiful. Yet this place is not beyond the reach of our carbon emissions."
"At least 18 times in the past three years BNSF Railway freight trains rolled west out of Minneapolis pulling cars filled with hazardous chemicals that were not on the train's official cargo list, according to train crew complaints."
"Moving to halt a powerful contributor to climate change, the United States has joined more than 110 corporations, civil society groups and governments to launch a global initiative to reduce deforestation sharply over the next 15 years, with the goal of eliminating the practice by 2030."
"According to oft-cited statistics, climate scientists are 95%-99% certain of climate change – about as certain as they are of the link between smoking and lung cancer. Nonetheless, an estimated 58% of US Republican congressmen claim to be unconvinced of it. This group, the so-called ' climate denier caucus,' is a big part of the reason that meaningful climate activist legislation keeps getting shot down. And according to a recent report, some of America’s most popular companies are helping to fund the effort."
"Two of the world's top health organizations released predictions Tuesday warning how bad the Ebola outbreak in West Africa could get."
