InsideClimate’s series, which began last June under the banner, “The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of,” revealed the inept response of industry and government to the 2010 oil spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, which dumped a million gallons of bitumen, a thick, dirty oil from Canada’s tar sands region that has to be thinned with chemicals in order to flow through oil pipelines.
It was not the first time that a Web-native newsroom founded within the last 10 years had won a Pulitzer Prize. There was ProPublica in 2010 and The Huffington Post in 2012, but they were born Goliaths in a land of Davids, and never before had such small startup won so quickly. As The Associated Press’s Deepthi Hajela noted:
In a sign of a rapidly changing media world, a relatively unknown New York-based online nonprofit news site joined some of the country’s most well-known media outlets in claiming a Pulitzer Prize, the highest honor in journalism.
The lack of national recognition belied InsideClimate News’s stature within the science and environmental community, however, where it has earned a tremendous amount of respect since its launch in 2007.
“What happens when you trade the foundations of your society for cash?” - Céline Rouze, a brave journalist who wrote Exxon Mobil’s Papua New Guinea LNG Project. This project is the largest energy project in the history of the entire Pacific Rim. Exxon’s promises of economic development has instead brought chaos and violence.
Céline Rouze is very courageous journalist. People like her give me hope…
From the Pulitzer Center’s Meet the Journalist Channel:
Papua New Guinea is a country torn between its traditional culture and the global economic system.
Journalist and radio documentary-maker Céline Rouzet shares what attracted her to this place, why she decided to investigate this topic, and the main challenges she faced reporting there.
Her reporting series, “Exxon Mobil’s Papua New Guinea LNG Project,” explores the social and economic issues related to the biggest development project undertaken in the history of the Pacific region.
The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting supports some of the deepest reporting (of all media) on the sweet spot between human, sociopolitical, and environmental crises.
This video shows the incredible work by Mujib Mashal, who for several months explored how international development aid lacks focus on its most important resource: water and water infrastructure. Afghanistan is an agricultural society, yet less than 5% of aid money goes to the water sector.
Pulitzer Center grantee Mujib Mashal explains how trans-boundary water tensions with Iran and Pakistan cast a shadow on the development of Afghanistan’s mainly agricultural economy.
In his reporting project, he’s found water murder, violent threats against political officials, farmers’ reluctance to diversify from poppy production until there’s enough water, and an international reluctance to get involved. Only 5 percent of aid money flowing into Afghanistan goes to the water sector, despite clear needs for infrastructure. Read more here.
It’s Climate Science Communications Week at Climate Adaptation! For the entire week of Feb. 18 - 23, I’ll cover how climate change is discussed by the media, scientists, researchers, academics, and politicians. If you have sources or ideas on communicating climate change, send to: http://climateadaptation.tumblr.com/submit
The world’s wealthy countries often criticise African nations for corruption - especially that perpetrated by those among the continent’s government and business leaders who abuse their positions by looting tens of billions of dollars in national assets or the profits from state-owned enterprises that could otherwise be used to relieve the plight of some of the world’s poorest peoples.
Yet the West is culpable too in that it often looks the other way when that same dirty money is channelled into bank accounts in Europe and the US.”
Al Jazeera is killing it this year with in-depth reporting. Comparatively, their reporting exposes the U.S. media as an embarrassment of insular, sensationalist clownery.
A blog about the interactions between the built environment, people, and nature.
I'm a Washington, DC-based climate adaptation specialist. I help governments and stakeholders around the world increase their capacity to deal with climate impacts.
In addition to traveling and hiking, I research, publish, and lecture on how cities can adapt to climate change.
"Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt." - John Updike
