The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's openness has been a major issue throughout the crisis of contaminated drinking water in Flint, which has caused lead poisoning of some children. One aspect of the openness issue is the ability of agency employees to speak with journalists; another is unfulfilled FOIA requests.
Bill Funk began his career in environmental journalism from an unlikely place — law school. After graduating from Vermont Law School with a Master's in Environmental Policy and a JD, he decided that instead of litigating environmental issues he’d rather write about them. Coming from a non-traditional journalism background hasn’t slowed his progress as a journalist though – Bill received four, count’em, four fellowships and awards in 2015.
"In January of 2015, when state officials were telling worried Flint residents their water was safe to drink, they also were arranging for coolers of purified water in Flint's State Office Building so employees wouldn't have to drink from the taps, according to state government e-mails released Thursday by the liberal group Progress Michigan."
"A U.S. activist featured in the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove", about a gory Japanese dolphin hunt, has been detained in Japan and said on Tuesday he was a political prisoner for his efforts to save dolphins."
"Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) on Wednesday released a trove of emails related to the Flint water crisis, something Snyder promised during his State of the State address."
Did you have a career breakthrough in 2015 or 2016? Did you get that big job promotion, career-changing grant, or finally finish that book? We want to hear about it. The inaugural 2016 Media on the Move Spotlight is on Sara Peach. Sara has been a member of SEJ since 2008 and is part of a news team that won $150,000 in the Knight News Challenge. Her team won for Campaign Hound, a service that tracks political stump speeches and indexes them by keyword. Read her story and listen to an interview.
Some journalists may remember the outrage back in 2014 about the Justice Department spying on journalists. And they may even remember Attorney General Eric Holder's promise to go straight and stop doing it — via new guidelines. But Trevor Timm, writing as a columnist in the Columbia Journalism Review, tells another chapter in the story.
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