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TipSheet is a biweekly source for story ideas, background, interview leads and reporting tools for journalists who cover news of the environment.

For questions and comments, or to suggest future TipSheets, email the TipSheet Editor Joseph A. Davis at sejournaleditor@sej.org.

Journalists can receive TipSheet free by subscribing to the SEJournal Online, the digital news magazine of the Society of Environmental Journalists. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. TipSheet is also available through the searchable archive below and via RSS feed.


Latest TipSheet Items

May 16, 2018

  • Drought is an urgent environmental story, both as it emerges in its seasonal form and as part of larger related issues of allocation and climate change. As the drought season gets underway, this week’s TipSheet offers story angles and more than a dozen key resources for your coverage.

May 9, 2018

  • A family of widely used fluorinated chemicals may be contaminating local drinking water supplies, causing uncertain health effects and with little clarity over federal regulations. But some states are starting to step in. This week’s TipSheet unwinds the confusion over PFAS, with some backstory and plenty of resources for your local coverage.

May 2, 2018

April 25, 2018

  • When it comes to the wildfires that now regularly threaten life and property, it’s not just the flames that create risk. Wildfire smoke itself can cause harm, even a long way from the fire. This week’s TipSheet explains the health threats of wildfire smoke and how to monitor the risk for your own area.

April 18, 2018

  • A running list of endangered rivers becomes an annual starting point for strong local coverage of critical water issues. This week’s TipSheet spotlights the latest additions to an inventory of trouble spots around the United States, plus key angles and issues for coverage, and a selection of top resources.

April 11, 2018

  • The Great Lakes are not only the largest fresh water system in the world, supplying drinking water to tens of millions. They also face a range of environmental woes that make them ready fodder for reporters. This week’s TipSheet runs down some ongoing developments, plus key resources to cover them.

April 4, 2018

  • They may not be the sexiest topics on the environmental agenda. But building codes and zoning can become a matter of life and death when natural disasters strike. This week’s TipSheet runs down the reporting challenge when floods, earthquakes and wildfires threaten your coverage area.

March 28, 2018

  • Lead is not just poisoning much of the U.S. drinking water supply. It’s also a threat to millions of the nation’s children, who continue to ingest lead paint chips from older housing stock decades after lead paint was banned. This week’s TipSheet explores this perennial problem and offers resources for local coverage.

March 21, 2018

  • Decades after the nation’s capital began its historic cleanup, sanitary sewage still occasionally swamps the Potomac River. Are sewage systems also dumping human waste and other pollutants into waterways near you? This week’s TipSheet has the background on the problem of combined sewage overflow, as well as resources for finding out what’s happening near you.

March 14, 2018

  • Coal ash can contaminate surface and ground water with toxic heavy metals. But as this week’s TipSheet reports, Trump deregulation aims to loosen EPA rules on its disposal. That may mean a big local pollution story. If journalists can find the data, that is. The latest on the new rules, plus resources for coverage.

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