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 $15,380 to five journalism projects selected in SEJ’s Fund for Environmental Journalism Summer 2013 grant cycle. In addition to the grant, SEJ will also provide mentoring support to any grantees requesting it.
SEJ launched the Fund for Environmental Journalism in 2010 to support reporting projects and entrepreneurial journalism ventures related to the environment. Since inception, small grants totaling more than $78,000 have 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 2013 cycle:
Kiera Butler
Oakland, CA
$3,500 for fact-checking to complete a book on 4-H clubs and their role in shaping modern agriculture
- Kiera Butler is a prolific freelance writer and senior editor at Mother Jones, where many of her articles are featured.
FEJ-Funded Project: Kiera's book, "Raise: What 4-H Teaches 7 Million Kids - and How Its Lessons Could Change Food and Farming Forever," was published by University of California Press in November 2014. Kiera spoke about the book in an interesting journalism event sponsored by Pop-Up Magazine, which reporter Lene Bech Sillesen covered for the March/April 2015 issue of Columbia Journalism Review, "The Power of Pop-Up Magazine's live journalism."
Karen Coates
Peralta, NM
$3,480 for travel to report on the environmental effects of agricultural change in Myanmar
- Find examples of Ms. Coates' work at karencoates.com, thiswaymorebetter.com and eternalharvestthebook.com
FEJ-Funded Project: Karen Coates' article, "The Global Land Grab: Rich Countries Are Buying Up Small Countries," featuring photography by Jerry Redfern, was published on Slate.com on April 25, 2014.
Another Coates and Redfern mulitmedia collaboration about Myanmar farmers' using cell phones to conduct business, "Cheap Mobiles Drive Myanmar's Farming Revolution," was published on SciDev.net on September 15, 2014.
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Daniel Grossman and Maureen Nandini Mitra
Watertown, MA and Berkeley, CA
$3,500 for travel to investigate impacts of climate change in the Himalayas
Although the two have paired up for this reporting project, they have done many projects on their own, as seen in these examples:
- Dan Grossman Media
- "Modified Stands," Earth Island Journal, August 2013, by Maureen Nandini Mitra
FEJ-Funded Project:
- An article by Dan Grossman from the funded trip was published on EarthIsland.org on Nov 8, 2014: "High up in the Himalayas, Villagers Live Under the Shadow of an Unpredictable Lake." Dan is also working on at least one magazine article and an enhanced ebook to be completed in early 2015.
- "Unnatural Disaster: How Climate Helped Cause India’s Big Flood," Yale Environment 360, June 23, 2015 (includes a four-minute video). View a slide show about the pilgrimage and disaster.
Jaeah J. Lee
San Francisco, CA
$3,500 for travel, visas, translation & equipment rental for reporting on the spread of fracking to China
- Find examples of her other work on Ms. Lee's Mother Jones author page.
FEJ-Funded Project: "The Great Frack Forward," a multimeda production by Jaeah Lee and James West, was published on MotherJones.com in September 2014.
Talli Nauman, Co-Director, Journalism to Raise Environmental Awareness
Spearfish, SD
$1,400 for travel expenses supporting a U.S.-Mexico cross-border citizen-journalism initiative focused on sustainable development in the Gulf of California Region
FEJ-Funded Project: The Spring 2014 Grassroots Bulletin on Sustainable Development in Northwest Mexico features a sampling of the prolific, compelling, bi-lingual reporting on a wide spectrum of environmental issues that is coming out of the funded community journalism project.
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To learn more about the FEJ grants program, including applicant eligibility and submission guidelines, or to see information and links about past awards, please go to the Fund for Environmental Journalism web page. We are currently fundraising for the next FEJ round of grants. Please consider making your own donation today, to help SEJ build the Fund for Environmental Journalism and support new work! Many in this field are adapting to disruptions in their employment and new methods in media; yet they remain steadfast in their goal of providing our communities every day with vitally important information on environment-related issues. If you would like to help experienced environmental journalists to continue producing rich, rigorously investigated and unbiased content, please make a gift on SEJ's secure website.
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