Ignoring the Elephant in the (News)room
The Society of Professional Journalists issued the following press release on December 15, 2015, after a meeting with White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. It is available on their site here.
Representatives for 53 journalism groups met December 15, 2015, with White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. The groups have complained about agency press offices obstructing reporters' access. Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) President Paul Fletcher said they "asked for a clear statement that government employees are free to speak without interference to members of the press and public." SEJ Freedom of Information Task Force Chairman Tim Wheeler attended. SPJ issued this press release.


Society of Environmental Journalists’ founder Jim Detjen and I were sitting together at an SEJ gathering not long ago wondering about the size of the collective readership/viewer/listenership of all of SEJ’s members. In essence, what is our potential reach? We calculated that it must be in the tens of millions. That’s power to help set the national dialogue and, in many cases, the global dialogue. Read more from SEJ President Jeff Burnside.
"The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in 'covert propaganda' and violated federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the public to back an Obama administration rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded."
"CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A federal judge is set to hear the state's request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by groups challenging Wyoming laws enacted this year that restrict data collection on open land."

The quarterly SEJ President's Report in SEJournal normally examines an issue important to the future health of the Society of Environmental Journalists and what you as a member might do about it. This time, in the just-released Winter 2015 issue, Jeff Burnside's report examines a different set of responsibilities: whether journalism is asleep at the wheel in failing to sufficiently cover a looming, irreversible environmental issue. Our most iconic and beloved wild species are now on the precipice of extinction, functionally if not literally.