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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.

TipSheet | Reporter's Toolbox | Backgrounders | WatchDog |

BookShelf | EJ Academy | EJ InSight | Voices of Environmental Justice |

Features | FEJ StoryLog | Freelance Files | Inside Story | SEJ News

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June 21, 2023

  • It’s a political knot with the potential to tangle the fossil energy industry, the clean energy industry … or both. Environmental journalists looking to better report on the impacts of permitting reform can start with our latest Backgrounder, which explores the issue’s recent history and the competing visions that have stalled changes. There’s also the “backroom problem.” Plus, get a rundown of key actors.

  • After a massive fire at a Texas petrochemical storage facility, reporters from Public Health Watch and The Texas Tribune worked together to shed light on who was responsible for this disaster and what health threats had been hidden from the public. This behind-the-scenes report from Public Health Watch’s David Leffler and Savanna Strott looks at the challenges the team faced and how they overcame them.

  • A billion pounds of chemicals are used on U.S. crops each year. Designed to protect them, they can also leave residue on foods we eat and enter the waterways we drink from. Reporter’s Toolbox has some key data sources for journalists, whether they’re looking at the big picture or are drilling down locally around issues of pesticide use and human or ecological health.

June 14, 2023

  • Attacks of all kinds on U.S. journalists clearly hamper a free press. And environmental journalists are not spared such aggressions, especially when covering contested places like pipeline construction sites. WatchDog Opinion outlines the problem and explores how journalists might be spared from such violations, including with a prospective law explicitly protecting journalists from assault.

  • A precipitous decline in bird populations worldwide and in North America has numerous causes and is, at least in part, the result of human activity. But the complexity of the problem doesn’t mean that it can’t be reported on the ground by environmental journalists using nearby resources. The latest TipSheet has more, along with a dozen-and-a-half story ideas and reporting resources.

  • When most people think of coastal tourist destinations, they imagine beaches lined by palm trees and exclusive resorts. But those are exactly the kind of realities that contribute to the environmental and economic decline of coastal communities and their local residents, argues a new book. Contributing Editor Jenny Weeks has our review in the new BookShelf.

June 7, 2023

  • For journalists looking to understand the condition of U.S. rangeland, forests or urban pavement, a high-quality government dataset collected via Landsat can help. And for data geeks who want to go a step further and illuminate human impacts on the environment, mapping overlays on the Landsat data can do the trick. Find out more in the new Reporter’s Toolbox.

  • Reporters covering floods, fires and other weather-driven disasters sometimes hesitate to link these extreme events to climate change. But TV meteorologists increasingly see an opportunity — and a responsibility — to help local audiences better understand the connections. Their unique relationship with viewers makes it easier to get past partisan divisions, while innovative tools are providing new ways to communicate information.

May 31, 2023

  • Forest fires have grown increasingly dangerous in a warming climate, a subject freelance journalist Jane Braxton Little has covered extensively in recent years. But her reporting turned personal when the rampaging Dixie Fire destroyed her small California town. As she explains in the new Inside Story Q&A, the wildfire disaster gave her a perspective no reporter would wish for.

  • Some areas of the United States are hot and getting hotter, thanks to climate change and now the coming El Niño. But some areas have little history with extreme temperatures — and those places are among the ones to watch this summer for local and regional reporting. Plus, who are the most vulnerable in your community when it comes to heat waves?

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