Tracking the Trackers in the Trump 2.0 Onslaught

President Donald Trump signs an executive order in February. A number of websites track Trump administration orders, regulations, litigation and more. Photo: The White House via Flickr Creative Commons (U.S. Government Work).

Reporter’s Toolbox: Tracking the Trackers in the Trump 2.0 Onslaught

By Joseph A. Davis

You say Trump 2.0 is “flooding the zone”? The number of rollbacks and lawsuits can be overwhelming for journalists trying to cover the administration’s actions.

The Reporter’s Toolbox is here to help.

A lot of Trump “trackers” have sprung up in the last few weeks. Here’s a handy list.

Let’s start with litigation trackers.

• The New York Times has a team tracking the lawsuits against President Donald Trump's actions — a surprising number of which have been halted, at least temporarily. They seemingly intend to follow the cases as they develop, including some on climate change and on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• The Washington Post has its own lawsuit tracker focused on those litigating against Trump executive actions, with updates on developments and case status, including about actions on the federal workforce.
• The Just Security law and policy blog has a tracker of Trump-challenging litigation. This foundation-funded site focuses on security and democracy issues, but includes an “environment” topic search that allows the user to filter by executive action and case name.

There’s also a series of trackers looking at regulations, campaign promises, administration appointments and executive orders.

• The nonpartisan think tank, Brookings Institution, is loaded with policy experts, usually highly regarded. Its Trump 2.0 “Reg Tracker” focuses on regulatory and deregulatory actions, including rules, guidance and policy revocations in a variety of policy areas, including environment and health. It has a tracker for the Biden presidency and Trump 1.0 for comparisons.
• PolitiFact, run by the Poynter Institute, is a nonpartisan “continuing education” mecca for journalists. Its tracker focuses on campaign promises — and whether they have been fulfilled, stalled or broken. It does this for all presidents.
• The Associated Press, one of the stoutest pillars of solid journalism, a sort of co-op of news outlets, has a tracker on the confirmation status of Trump appointments, especially cabinet posts.
• Several top law firms practicing in Washington, D.C., are offering trackers on Trump 2.0 executive orders and the like. They do this to serve (and attract) clients. There is an executive actions tracker from Sheppard Mullin, an executive order tracker from Akin that is searchable by energy and environment issues, and other executive order trackers from Mayer Brown and Hogan Lovells.

There are some science-related trackers to check out too.

• Washington University in St. Louis has a federal research updates page that’s mostly news about how the new administration affects researchers’ ability to get grants. It’s mostly not good news. Access may be limited, but find out more here.
• Science magazine, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a top scientific organization, has a tracker that’s more like a “latest news” compilation — but good for following the action on science and anti-science.

And here are some others to explore, including on press freedom and, yes, Trump’s golfing habits.

• The University of California San Diego library has produced this huge and wide-ranging directory of Trump trackers that goes way beyond lawsuits. It’s arranged by type with live links and includes a section on climate and environment trackers.
• The international advocacy group Human Rights First has a Democracy Watch tracker that focuses on federal and state bills in various categories, including climate and environmental rights.
• To keep track of press freedom issues under Trump, visit the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation. [Full Disclosure: SEJournal Editor Adam Glenn is the foundation’s deputy editor.] The tracker maintains a database and reports on a wide range of infringements against journalists and news outlets, plus it catalogs Trump’s anti-press social media rhetoric and his lawsuits against the media.
• Finally, Alt Media’s Trump Golf Track keeps an eye on Trump’s time spent on golf outings. Also the price of eggs and the price of gasoline — trending upward. Alt Media is run by former Democratic National Committee field director Adam Parkhomenko and former White House correspondent Sam Youngman. They tracked golfing in Trump 1.0 as well — he was estimated to have played a round of golf every 5.6 days.

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 9. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.