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Inside Story

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Inside Story is a regular question-and-answer feature of SEJournal Online in which we hear from award-winning journalists about the behind-the-scenes practices, ideas and breakthroughs that led to their best work, and their advice to other journalists about how to excel.

For questions and comments, or to suggest future Inside Story features, email Inside Story Co-Editors Rocky Kistner and Chioma Lewis at sejournaleditor@sej.org.

Also be sure to check out past winners of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment. Here's the list of winners from 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019.

Public

July 13, 2022

  • Beat Reporter Looks to Get Ahead of the Story

    As Brazil’s wetlands burned and as the country illegally shipped wood from the Amazon and scaled back environmental enforcement amid the pandemic, award-winning journalist Jake Spring of Reuters was there, telling tough, sometimes dangerous stories. Spring shares insights into his “just the facts” reporting, including the surprises and the lessons, and offers some practical advice in this Inside Story Q&A.

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June 8, 2022

  • ‘Big Fish’ Report Hooks Prize With Look at Aquaculture and Environment

    The challenges of sustainable aquaculture are at the heart of an extensive reporting project recognized in the Society of Environmental Journalists’ most recent round of reporting awards. In this Inside Story Q&A, Hakai Magazine’s founding editor, Jude Isabella (pictured at left), and author Brian Payton share insights into the series, which looks closely at the industry and its environmental costs.

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May 11, 2022

  • Investigation Into Dry Oil Wells Reveals High Risks, Costs to Nearby Neighborhoods

    A casual query from an editor prompted an investigative reporter to pair up with a data journalism reporter at a partner news organization to dig into the risks that thousands of dry oil wells across California posed to surrounding communities, including many low-income Latino neighborhoods. How the resulting award-winning series came together, in an Inside Story Q&A with reporter Mark Olalde.

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April 13, 2022

March 16, 2022

  • Tracking Regulatory Changes Reveals Insights Into Presidential Power Over Environment

    Sweeping, data-driven reporting on the impact of the Trump White House on environment policy won high praise for a Washington Post reporting team that took first prize for beat reporting in the most recent Society of Environmental Journalists’ reporting awards. Find out how award winners Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and John Muyskens approached this vast topic, in the new Inside Story Q&A.

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January 5, 2022

  • Reporters Reveal ‘Decades of Deceit’ Over Underground Water Contamination

    A trove of confidential documents about a well-known groundwater pollution problem helped journalists Paul LaRocco and David M. Schwartz uncover how much had actually been hidden about the contamination’s severity and how it could have been kept from worsening. In the latest Inside Story Q&A, LaRocco and Schwartz share the story behind their award-winning investigation.

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November 24, 2021

  • Rural Reporter Turns Routine Permit Into Award-Winning Investigation

    It was a seemingly mundane legal notice about a surface water discharge permit. But when Wyoming journalist Angus Thuermer Jr. took a closer look, he discovered that it would mean massive discharges of pollutants into local waters. Inside Story explains how Thuermer revealed the truth about the plans, prompting local protests and, ultimately, a withdrawal of the permit.

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October 27, 2021

  • Climate Change at Core of Beat Reporters’ Award-Winning Coverage

    Beat reporters Hal Bernton and Mark Kaufman both found the dramatic changes wrought by climate change to be at the center of their coverage — as their work was elevated to prize-winning heights. Bernton, covering climate impacts in northwestern Alaska at a large newspaper, and Kaufman, covering CO2 globally for a digital platform, talk about the lessons of their recent beat coverage with SEJournal’s Inside Story.

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September 29, 2021

  • Two Communities, Two Hazards and the Two Award-Winners Reporting Them

    Two outstanding features — one on air pollution from a local coke plant in Pennsylvania, another on deaths from a shellfish toxin in Alaska, and both focused on public health, neglected communities and environmental justice — are the subject of the new Inside Story Q&A. Society of Environmental Journalists’ award-winners Nancy Averett and Zoya Teirstein share their reporting insights and advice.

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August 25, 2021

  • Pulitzer Finalist on an Estuary’s Tale, and Stories Hiding in Plain Sight

    Prize-winning journalist Tony Bartelme and his local news team enter one of the East Coast’s largest, but lesser known estuaries, and come out with an account that awards judges called “gorgeously executed in the best tradition of storytelling about the environment.” Bartelme shares lessons of covering the challenges of an amorphous ecosystem, and touches on his long record of award-winning reporting, in the latest Inside Story.

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