Federal legislation to protect reporters from having to reveal confidential sources may be back on track. A markup in the Senate Judiciary Committee, possibly November 5, 2009, could tell.
As debate over climate legislation rages, reporters will encounter many confusing and seemingly contradictory statements about the costs of changing US energy practices. You may help your audience with an understanding of how incomplete the cost figures cited by companies and politicians often are.
Attorney and journalist Michael Ravnitzky offers a strategy for accessing unpublished reports: direct a public records request to agencies of interest for all reports not posted on the agency's website, within a specific time frame and not limited by topic.
"Advocates for coal miners said Thursday that they expect a new direction for the nation’s mine safety agency under its new chief, former miner and top union official Joseph Main. On a voice vote, the Senate confirmed Main on Wednesday night as the head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration."
EPA seems to be making efforts to use social media to improve public participation in its decisions, says the watchdog group OMB Watch, citing the TRI forum as one example of several.
You know you are not on the A-list when the press advisory is sent to you after the press conference takes place, as one SEJ member experienced on October 16, 2009.
Persistence pays off for Greenwire reporter Darren Samuelsohn who filed his first Freedom of Information Act request for it back in July 2008, re-filed it in January 2009 at the start of the Obama administration, and finally received it October 13, 2009.
"The Interior Department said Tuesday that it would investigate a decision made by the Bush administration to grant low royalty rates for oil shale development in the Rocky Mountains."
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson declares in an NPR interview: "EPA is back on the job working on behalf of the American people for public health, for environmental quality."
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