Public

Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery

By Jim Motavalli
$26.95 Da Capo Press

Reviewed by Bill Kovarik

Hermits and wild men of every shape and motivation have long been fixtures of world folklore. From John the Baptist to TV's Bear Grylls, survival in the wilderness has been a hallmark of integrity and, sometimes, intelligence.

  By ROGER ARCHIBALD

Protecting the cloud forest ecosystem of a nearly-extinct bird with a magnificent plumage.

  By JENNIFER OLADIPO

SEJ members Joy Horowitz, Erin K.D. Judd, Charlotte Kidd and Jennifer Oladipo were four of seven environmental reporting fellows at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawai'i in May.

 By ROBERT McCLURE
 

The fastest-growing water pollution threat in my region – and probably in yours, too – is stormwater, that filthy mixture that results when rain or melting snow washes away oil, antifreeze, dog poop, fertilizer, pesticide and anything else on the ground. It is truly foul stuff.

All that ends up somewhere. Usually, that's your nearest stream, wetland or bay. And the rainwater running off streets and other hard surfaces tends to come in big surges that gouge out stream bottoms.

 By AMY GAHRAN

 Media aren't what-or where- they used to be, especially when it comes to news.

As an example, look at May 12, 2008, when in the wee hours of the morning (by U.S. reckoning) users of the popular social media service Twitter broke the news of a major earthquake centered in Chengdu, China, three minutes before the U.S. Geological Survey earthquake reporting site posted its announcement.

By BUD WARD

"Print reporter."
For years – make that decades – it was a term I applied to myself with honor.
I figured I'd take it to the grave with me, there being no finer epitaph.

Now, dem's fightin' words. Insulting, disparaging, or, at the very least, anachronistic.