Journalism & Media

By MIKE DUNNE

Two members of the Society of Environmental Journalists honored recently for their investigative reporting efforts say that digging through records and old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting helped them make good stories great.

Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette was the winner of the Scripps Howard Edward Meeman Award for environmental reporting – the third time he was so honored. His winning work focused on a coal silo permit that should not have been issued and was revoked thanks to his reporting.

 Teddy's luckless, little-known trip makes a riveting tale

THE RIVER OF DOUBT: THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S DARKEST JOURNEY
 By Candice Millard  
 Doubledy, $26

 Climate change scientist paints a stark and vivid picture

THE WINDS OF CHANGE: CLIMATE, WEATHER AND THE DESTRUCTION OF CIVILIZATIONS By Eugene Linden 
Simon & Schuster, $26

Exploring the legacy of dams and human delusions of grandeur

DEEP WATER: THE EPIC STRUGGLE OVER DAMS, DISPLACED PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT Jacques Leslie 
Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, $15.75

Reviewed by NANCY BAZILCHUK 

A dam may not be forever, even if constructions like the Hoover Dam are expected to survive for a thousand years. A dam's environmental and social impacts, though, are enormous, extensive and essentially irreversible.

By JACKLEEN de La HARPE

 By CHERYL DORSCHNER

Every year that moveable feast, known as the SEJ Conference Saturday night reception, rolls out its local talent and regional cuisine. Veteran conference-goers still speak in hushed tones of the 2003 party at New Orleans' Mardi Gras World and gyrate at the thought of 2004 in Pittsburgh with "No Bad Ju-Ju."

This year, the Vermont conference team promises to take the concept of "local" to a new level, thanks to this event's sponsorship by co-host the University of Vermont.