Category Archives: Research

        
 
 
 
 

PREGNANCY & CLIMATE

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Climate change makes pregnancy more dangerous, impacts reproductive health, journalists say

This is the 1st in a series of feature stories on environmental topics by Knight Center students who attended the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalists conference.

By Clara Lincolnhol

Clara Lincolnhol

There is no such thing as an “uncomplicated pregnancy” now for most women, thanks to climate change, said journalists at the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalists Conference.

Pregnant women use more oxygen and water than non-pregnant ones, making them more sensitive to changes in their environments.

They also have a harder time regulating their body temperature, said Jesssica Kutz, a reporter for The 19th.

Climate change directly affects pregnant women through warming temperatures and worsening air quality, making pregnancy more difficult and dangerous, she said.

It can also impact accessibility to, and the effectiveness of, contraceptives. For example, many Americans order birth control pills by mail, but if temperatures climb too high while the pills are in an enclosed space, like a mailbox, they become ineffective, Kutz said.

Climate change-induced natural disasters limit accessibility to reproductive health care by making it physically impossible at times to receive care. That can be through closures, damage to health centers, impassable roads and power outages that render certain medications unviable, she said. Continue reading →

LATINEX REPORTING 

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How to report on an underserved community and their sensitive information

This is the 3rd in a series of articles about reporting skills by Knight Center students who attended the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalists conference.

By Isabella Figueroa Nogueira

Isabella Figueroa Nogueira

With the new Trump administration, reporting on Latinx communities has been more difficult than ever to keep undocumented people and their information safe.

SEnvironmental journalists discussed that situation at the 2025 Society of Environmental conference in Arizona.

The panel was called “When There Is No Data Available: How to Report Environmental Stories on Latinx Communities in a Hostile Administration?”

The panelists talked about the many ways reporters can collect the data needed to report while protecting marginalized communities.

Monica Samayoa, a climate reporter at Oregon Public Broadcasting, talked about walking in neighborhoods and knocking on doors with someone the community knows and trusts, like a lawmaker or a community leader. Talking to people face-to-face can make them feel comfortable sharing their sensitive information.

MSU SEJ LATINEX PANEL

Door-to-door knocking can be effective in some places, but not in Puerto Rico, according to Luis J. Méndez González, a climate change investigative reporter at Centro de Periodismo Investigativo.

People will kick you out of their homes if you knock on their door and try to get information out of them, he said.

“I call them. I’ll talk to them about the issue and, if they feel comfortable, then I will go to their homes or maybe I will meet them in a church or in a business,” said Méndez González. Continue reading →

Environmental journalism goes hi-tech

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This is the 2nd in a series of articles about reporting skills by Knight Center students who attended the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalists conference.

By Julia Belden

Julia Benden

Global trade databases. Air quality sensors. Artificial intelligence.

Harnessing new technologies is easier than ever, and some can help environmental journalists hold power to account, according to a panel of experts at the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) Conference in Tempe, Arizona.

Many of the resources shared by the experts are free or low-cost, making them ideal for freelancers or under resourced newsrooms.

“Follow the money”

Jelter Meers, the research editor at the Pulitzer Center, presented a roadmap for investigating institutions and their environmental impacts. First, he said, “follow the money.”

Journalists can find information on company ownership, financiers and funders through company registries, stock markets, international databases and more.

Often, this information can be found on free-to-access online databases, Meers said. SEC.gov, OCCRP Aleph and OpenCorporates are good places to start.

Journalists affiliated with well-resourced newsrooms and universities can take advantage of paid databases like LexisNexis and Sayari.

The flow of money isn’t the only thing worth tracking, Meers said. Following a company’s supply chains might also yield critical information for investigations.

In addition to these websites, Meers recommended additional free databases such as the United Nations’s COMTRADE for tracking down supply chain data.

Finally, journalists can get creative with satellite and geospatial data, layering datasets on top of one another to “create a dialogue between them,” Meers said.

By combining satellite imagery from sources like NASA Worldview with geospatial data from websites like Protected Planet, journalists can get a dynamic bird’s-eye view of environmental impacts and create compelling visuals for their audience. Continue reading →

SCIENCE CONTROVERSIES

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How to report on science controversies

This is the 1st in a series of articles about reporting skills by Knight Center students who attended the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalists conference.

By RUTH THORNTON

Ruth Thornton

How can science journalists cover scientific controversies and scientists’ misconduct without decreasing the public’s trust in science itself?

A panel at this year’s Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference at Arizona State University discussed this gnarly problem.

The panel was moderated by Jackie Mogensen, a reporter with Mother Jones, and included panel members Stepanie Lee, a senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Rodrigo Pérez Ortega, a staff writer with Science magazine and Amy Westervelt, an investigative climate journalist and executive editor of Drilled.

Science controversies panel

Lee described her reporting about Brian Wansink, the now-discredited professor and researcher at Cornell University’s food lab who studied eating behaviors and food marketing.

“This was a lab at an Ivy League university with a lot of media attention and a lot of eye-catching and influential findings published in a lot of different journals,” Lee said.

Then, in 2016 or 2017, non-Cornell data scientists took a closer look at the numbers the studies reported, she said.

They “found a lot of very concerning red flags that somehow had not been noticed before, including straight-out impossible numbers,” Lee said.

She uncovered that the lab had been exaggerating and manipulating their calculations for years, she said.

“They were maniacally focused on getting media attention and buzz for their findings,” she said.

Lee said the faulty results impressed funders and pleased Cornell University.

And they were not detected by the journals. Continue reading →