Thanks to generous funding from the Grantham Foundation, and individual members and friends of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ), we are pleased to announce grants totaling $9,760 to three journalism projects selected in SEJ’s Fund for Environmental Journalism Summer 2014 grant cycle. In addition to the grant, SEJ will provide mentoring support to any grantees requesting it.
Since 2010 SEJ has supported reporting projects and entrepreneurial journalism ventures through its Fund for Environmental Journalism. To date, over $100,000 in grants has been awarded to both staff and freelance journalists to cover costs of travel, document access, graphics and website development, translation, and other budget items, without which journalists might have been unable to produce and distribute specific, timely stories about important environmental issues.
Congratulations to the grantees in the Summer 2014 cycle:
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Courtney Flatt and Tony Schick
EarthFix
Richland, WA
$3,500 for travel and soil testing in an investigation of contamination from old orchard residue in the American Northwest, produced as radio and video packages with interactive maps and graphics for public media radio and television
FEJ-Funded Project: "Contaminated Soil Lingers Where Apples Once Grew," OPB.org FM radio, Oct. 12, 2015
About the team:
Courtney Flatt began her journalism career at The Dallas Morning News as a neighbors editor. There, she also wrote articles for the Metro section, where she reported on community issues ranging from water security to the arts. Courtney earned her master’s in convergence journalism at the University of Missouri and developed a love for radio and documentary film. As a producer at KBIA-FM she hosted a weekly business show, reported and produced talk shows on community and international issues. Her work took her from the unemployment lines, to a Methamphetamine bust, to the tornado damage aftermath in Joplin, Mo.
Tony Schick is an investigative and data reporter who covers the environment beat in the Pacific Northwest. He is a native of Portland. Tony previously worked as the web editor for Investigative Reporters and Editors, a journalism nonprofit based in Columbia, Missouri. Before that he received his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. He has worked as a freelance reporter and researcher since 2007. He has undergraduate degrees in journalism and sociology from Gonzaga University, where he spent enough time after hours in the student newsroom that he and his wife named their dog, Myron, after the building’s beloved overnight custodian.
EarthFix - News Fixed on the Environment is a public media partnership of Oregon Public Broadcasting, Idaho Public Television, KCTS9 Seattle, KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio, Northwest Public Radio and Television, Jefferson Public Radio, KLCC and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Beth Gardiner
London, UK
$3,500 for travel in India to report on air pollution and environmental education there, resulting in a book as well as articles in major international newspapers
Beth Gardiner is a London-based freelance journalist, focusing on energy, environment and climate. She is a former longtime Associated Press reporter, now writing for publications including the International New York Times and the Guardian. She is on Twitter at @Gardiner_Beth.
FEJ-Funded Project:
- "Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution," University of Chicago Press, April 2019.
- "The Challenges of Cleaning Up Cooking," New York Times International Edition, published Dec. 8, 2015.
- "How India is Teaching 300 Million Kids to be Environmentalists," Smithsonian.com September 21, 2015.
Other work by Ms. Gardiner may be found here:
- TheGuardian.com - "My Children Are Suffering but What Can I Do? Delhi's polluted air by the people who live there," published June 25, 2015.
- On NYTimes.com - "The Economic and Environmental Costs of Wasted Food," published April 23, 2014; "Energy Crunch for Britain’s Poor," published Nov. 11, 2013; and "We’re All Climate-Change Idiots," published July 21, 2012; and on TheGuardian.com - "Air of revolution: how activists and social media scrutinise city pollution," published Jan. 31, 2014.
Rachel Nuwer
Brooklyn, NY
$2,760 for travel to Myanmar to report on conservation initiatives through interviews, a conservationist’s biography, and travel writing for major U.S. newspapers and magazines
Rachel Nuwer is a freelance science journalist who contributes to outlets such as The New York Times, Scientific American, Smithsonian and BBC Future. She holds a master's degree in ecology and often reports on environmental issues ranging from illegal wildlife trade to climate change. She lives in Brooklyn with a large orange cat. Examples of Ms. Nuwer's work may be found on BBC.com - "Last Place on Earth" column; Audubon.org - "A Buddhist Ritual Gets an Ecologically Correct Update," published online and in the magazine's Jan-Feb 2014 issue; and NYTimes.com - "A Hungry Little Squatter: A Lizard Interloper Presents Challenge in Florida," published Aug. 4, 2014.
FEJ-Funded Project: "Saving Eden: Conservationists Are Looking to Ecotourism to Preserve Myanmar’s Wilderness, But Challenges Abound," Scientific American, May 2016.
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Help experienced environmental journalists produce rich, rigorously investigated and unbiased stories about issues affecting the environment. Make a gift to the Fund for Environmental Journalism on SEJ's secure website.
To learn more about the FEJ grant program, including applicant eligibility and submission guidelines, or to see information and links about past grants, please go to the Fund for Environmental Journalism web page.
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