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SEJournal is the weekly digital news magazine of the Society of Environmental Journalists. SEJ members are automatically subscribed. Nonmembers may subscribe using the link below. Send questions, comments, story ideas, articles, news briefs and tips to Editor Adam Glenn at sejournaleditor@sej.org. Or contact Glenn if you're interested in joining the SEJournal volunteer editorial staff.

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July 14, 2021

  • Urban tree cover is no luxury, but rather an important environmental and public health necessity. And for years the lack of urban trees has harmed socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods. To help report on tree cover in U.S. urban areas — and to track it against environmental justice measures — the latest Reporter’s Toolbox spotlights an extensive tree equity scoring database. 

  • With heat waves driven by global warming pounding parts of the western United States this summer, environmental journalists mustn’t overlook the toll on especially vulnerable populations, among them disadvantaged groups, the elderly, those in low-income housing and more. The latest Issue Backgrounder helps reporters understand heat’s health effects, track heat-vulnerable populations and clarifies how communities can prepare and prevent the worst public health impacts.

  • A reporting team at BuzzFeed used a powerful array of data analysis techniques to arrive at a disturbing conclusion about the wintery devastation in Texas — there were far more deaths than acknowledged. But their investigation didn’t stop there. They tracked down families of the deceased to understand the human toll and pressured government over its accountability. How they got the story for “The Graveyard Doesn’t Lie.”

June 30, 2021

  • Environmental journalists around the world sometimes pay for their work with their freedom, safety or even their lives. The Forbidden Stories network continues the reporting of some of those journalists, and a team there recently produced an award-winning collaboration to investigate troubles at mining giants in Central America, South Asia and East Africa. “The Green Blood Project” in this month’s Inside Story.

  • As the solar panel business resurges, the wide scope of possible regional and local story angles — climate, tech, consumer, business, jobs, air quality and grid reliability — make bright prospects for journalists. The latest TipSheet sets out recent political and market developments, along with more than a dozen story ideas and reporting resources.

June 23, 2021

  • Leaks are a vital source of information for the news media, but shifting White House policy on pursuing the source of leaks has created confusion and worry among news practitioners. WatchDog Opinion calls for clearer signals from the Biden administration and renews support for a federal shield law to help journalists protect their sources.

  • For reporters covering the long-standing conflict over offshore drilling, which erupted again this month after a federal judge blocked a halt to new leases, an Interior Department database offers a wealth of data about offshore wells. The latest Reporter’s Toolbox walks you through the maze of bureaucracy behind the database, and then provides detailed guidance on how to make the most of its info.

June 16, 2021

  • With megadrought a growing reality, one way into the story is through ubiquitous water management agencies. TipSheet surveys the “waterscape” of these governmental bodies — from local irrigation districts to multi-state regional water compacts — and how focusing on them can yield vital insights for drought stories. Plus, questions to ask and links to reporting resources.

  • Journalist Lyndsie Bourgon had covered timber poaching in the Pacific Northwest for over a decade when she decided to expand her scope, heading to the Peruvian Amazon to explore old-growth poaching there. In FEJ StoryLog, she shares the ups and downs of that project, made possible in part by a grant from the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Fund for Environmental Journalism.

  • For a clean energy transition to succeed, it almost certainly will have to bring along displaced workers and communities. To help journalists understand the challenges underlying that shift, BookShelf’s Jenny Weeks reviews two volumes. The first is a new memoir of working in North Dakota’s booming Bakken oil fields, the second an earlier account of decline in a working-class community in Oregon.

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