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The WatchDog has been published by the Society of Environmental Journalists for nearly two decades, relentlessly alerting journalists of threats to their ability to gather information and do their jobs. In 2020, SEJournal relaunched the WatchDog in a new form — as a regularly published opinion column advocating open information in a personal voice. The “voice” of the WatchDog is that of columnist Joseph A. Davis (pictured, right), who has been advocating First Amendment freedom for all that time and who has been covering the environment journalistically since the 1970s. Read more about the relaunch of the WatchDog Opinion column. And find the 2008-early 2020 archives of the former WatchDog Tipsheet here.

For questions and comments, or to suggest future columns, email WatchDog Opinion Editor Joseph A. Davis at sejournaleditor@sej.org.

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Latest WatchDog Items

November 26, 2025

  • Student Journalists, Adviser Take on University Censorship

    If it’s a journalism feel-good story you need heading into the holiday season, peek over the shoulder of the Ernie Pyle statue to the hall that houses the Media School at Indiana University Bloomington. Inside, you’ll find the heroes of the Indiana Daily Student, who, with the help of fellow journalists, stood up to suppression. WatchDog Opinion shares their inspirational story.

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October 29, 2025

  • Why Media Consolidation Threatens Press Freedom, Democracy

    Speeding media mergers — the latest examples being Paramount’s hookup with CBS and its recent pursuit of CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery — could have serious societal repercussions, argues WatchDog Opinion. Among them: the risks of growing government control and political censorship. But a glimmer of hope comes from another, quieter, revolution that might just be the saving grace for independent accountability journalism.

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October 1, 2025

  • The Dark Side of ‘Bothsidesism’

    Journalistic values — whether code of ethics-style values like truth, context and fairness, or news-style values like impact, novelty and human interest — are nothing to be shy about and can make for great journalism. But some values can be distorted and drag journalism down a dead end, argues the new WatchDog Opinion. Two environmental cases where false balance does damage.

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September 3, 2025

  • Trump Climate Science Denial Hinges on … Not Saying the Word

    A war on the facts behind climate change — and on the actions to address it — is well underway in the second Trump administration. The new WatchDog Opinion column takes the measure of the battlefront, eyeing key examples of the political onslaught, including a concerted effort to eradicate the very term itself. Regulations killed, research discredited, speech censored and more.

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July 23, 2025

  • RFK Jr. Attacks Some Unwelcome Truth-Telling

    When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. threatened to forbid government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals, WatchDog was among those who paid heed to this worrisome move to censor science, and the harm it portends for environmental science, environmental journalism and, ultimately, public health. But as WatchDog warns, it could be just the tip of the iceberg.

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June 18, 2025

  • Public Broadcasting Cuts Would Harm Free Press

    Trump administration efforts to defund public media, now before Congress, are a misguided effort to harm a source of journalism that is highly trusted by audiences, argues the latest WatchDog Opinion column. And while public broadcasting’s diverse funding sources may insulate it from politics to some degree, the attacks do threaten to chill press freedom, including environmental reporting, more broadly. The latest Dog explains.

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May 21, 2025

  • Trump Pursues Broad Attack on Press Freedom

    In case you haven’t been keeping track, Donald Trump has been engaging in a multifront offensive against the news media and press freedom more generally. WatchDog Opinion catalogs the transgressions to illustrate how the president is moving to grasp control of White House pool coverage, beguile rich media owners, politicize libel law, kneecap public media and weaponize regulatory agencies.

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April 16, 2025

  • Trump 2.0 Cuts Hit FOIA Offices at Federal Agencies

    The Freedom of Information Act is a key tool for environmental journalists, but firings at many federal agencies’ FOIA offices threaten to seriously undermine it. That’s the warning from WatchDog Opinion, which points to dire implications for the free flow of information on public health and environmental health threats. A look at what’s at stake and what some are doing to keep FOIA alive.

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March 19, 2025

  • Trump Pick To Head Secretive Agency Adept at Stifling Info, Regs

    A little-known federal office where some say environmental and other regulations go to die may soon be led by a Trump loyalist best known as an indicted co-conspirator in the plot to overthrow the 2020 election. What is OIRA? And who is Trump’s pick to lead the powerful subagency? WatchDog Opinion has answers and some worrying questions, along with resources for reporters to dig further.

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February 12, 2025

  • Press Freedom Issues Come to Fore As Trump 2.0 Launches

    Salvaging disappearing web pages from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, fostering (and protecting) government whistleblower sources and sussing out the First Amendment’s prospects under the new attorney general at the Justice Department — the latest WatchDog Opinion scans the Trump administration’s information terrain. Plus, check out the latest actions from the Society of Environmental Journalists’ freedom of information efforts.

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