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SEJournal's regular Features section cover a wide-range of environmentally related topics in a variety of formats, including essays, first-hand accounts of reporting work, news analysis and opinion.

For questions and comments, to suggest future Features or to offer to write one, email SEJournal Associate Editor Frances Backhouse at sejournaleditor@sej.org.


May 6, 2020

January 29, 2020

  • An overflow crowd of environmental reporters and others gathered in Washington, D.C., last week at the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual look-ahead on environment and energy news to hear what speakers like the former United Nations head and top journalists see as the news to watch for. Find out what one story dominated. Plus, watch video of the full program.

January 22, 2020

  • As part of our “2020 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment” to help reporters track the stories coming their way this year, SEJournal Online looks ahead to major developments on the beat — from Washington, D.C. to the Arctic, from public lands to fossil fuels. We also explore pending news on transportation, agriculture, nukes, federal funding, freedom of information and even algae. Also under our gaze, key facets of the climate story. Read our overview analysis and then dive deep into the full offering of special Backgrounders, TipSheets and WatchDogs.

December 4, 2019

  • The data on dirty air is devastating. But it wasn’t just the numbers that prompted freelance journalist Beth Gardiner to chase the story of worsening air pollution around the globe. It was also the impact on human lives and the intersection with politics, power and money. She explains in our latest feature story. Plus, resources for your own reporting.

October 16, 2019

  • Missed the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual gathering in Fort Collins? Never fear, for our in-house humorist David Helvarg has herein recounted the “highs” (and paranoid lows). Among them: oddball scientists, strolls in a snow storm, bad burros and beet-based dinners. Plus, the secret strategy behind SEJ’s conference site selection.

June 26, 2019

  • While environmental journalists often focus on regulatory wrestling matches in Washington, D.C., a seasoned New York Times investigative reporter argues the most important stories are those in the real communities where bureaucratic impacts are felt. Three-time Pulitzer winner Eric Lipton makes the case for public service in journalism that tells the environment story from the outside in.

March 13, 2019

  • An environmental documentary that follows a risk-laden effort to save a rare and elusive porpoise won over audiences at the recent Sundance Film Festival. Correspondent JoAnn Valenti takes a look at the film, along with other documentaries that explore the role of journalists and journalism. 

January 23, 2019

March 21, 2018

March 14, 2018

  • While environmental themes were less prominent at the Sundance Film Festival this year, our correspondent JoAnn Valenti unearthed ecological messages from documentaries that explore the emergence of climate change refugees in the face of sea level rise, the escape from modernity into wilderness and the confrontation of environmental threats by young innovators.

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