National (U.S.)

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 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.

The Association of Health Care Journalists wrote the Obama administration asking it to end the practice of making reporters go through public affairs offices to arrange interviews with federal experts and, in some cases, having public affairs people monitor those interviews.

Hundreds of civic groups and individuals called on EPA March 1, 2009, to restore the Toxics Release Inventory to its former usefulness for informing people of what toxic chemicals companies are releasing into their air, water, and land.

There is a lot of useful government information that is freely available to journalists and the public online. Here are some examples from EPA that can be the building blocks of great stories.

A Bush-appointed holdover inspector general has teamed up with an ultraconservative Senator in a "plumber" operation aimed at punishing agency employees who revealed attempts to gut the Endangered Species Act via "midnight regulations."

SEJ and science journalism groups expressed opposition to a bill that would reverse current policy of free publication of scientific results coming from federal agencies.

 

 By CHERYL HOGUE

It seems improbable — a regulatory agency officially inviting polluters to secretly influence the scientific judgments it uses in crafting cleanup plans. But it happened earlier this year.

And it's likely to have impacts in the communities you cover, especially if they're facing pollution threats from a nearby military base or a Department of Energy or NASA facility.