Publication Items

By BILL FREUDENBURG

[Note: Published posthumously in the Spring 2011 SEJournal, this is Bill's preface to Atrophy of Vigilance as he wrote it.]

May 14, 2009. Yesterday, my doctors told me that I have a rare and usually fatal cancer, meaning that I don’t know how much time I have left on this earth. By about 2:00 this morning, I had decided that one of the things I want to do with that time is to finish this book about the earth, and about what we humans are doing to it.

In this issue: Remembering Bill Freudenburg; SEJ's Fund for Environmental Journalism grows;  move from daily newspaper job rewards science writer and book author; environment in dramas at Sundance Film Festival; essential reading list for climate change reporters; how to stop procrastinating; students produce impressive series on climate change threats to national security.    

The draft policy, released recently by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), barely addresses media access. It leaves this to the purview of the Commerce Department Public Communications Policy — which has not changed since the last year of the Bush administration.

AP reported President Barack Obama received an award "for making the government more open and transparent — presented to him behind closed doors with no news coverage or public access allowed." The event offered evidence that Obama's minders may be the worst enemies of his presidency — and that the PR pros are badly fumbling the PR ball.