‘They’re Back’ — Veteran Journalists on Braving the Specter of Trump’s Return

A clampdown on information is a real challenge with the new administration, warns one journalist. But there are ways to get at the information needed for good stories. Above, a reporter at a Pentagon press briefing. Photo: Department of Defense/Cherie Cullen via Flickr Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0).

Special Analysis: ‘They’re Back’ — Veteran Journalists on Braving the Specter of Trump’s Return

By Jennifer Weeks

President Donald Trump’s second term launched on Jan. 20 with a sweeping agenda focused on radically shrinking the federal government, reducing regulation and centralizing presidential power. Six weeks later, many observers are still shell-shocked.

While Trump’s operating style is familiar — including his penchant for grandiose pronouncements and his hostility toward mainstream media outlets — his second administration appears to be better organized and more disciplined than his first.

So all in all, covering Trump 2.0 poses stark challenges for news outlets.

But many environmental journalists who reported on Trump between 2016 and 2020 can offer perspective. And more than half a dozen recently offered SEJournal their insight and advice, along with some practical tips.

While acknowledging new challenges, senior journalists say that clear, accurate reporting on the Trump administration’s environmental actions is critical.

“The sheer volume of things that are happening is intended to overwhelm and confuse people,” investigative journalist Amy Westervelt, founder and executive editor of Drilled Media, tells the SEJournal. “Making issues accessible and digestible is important, so people can get their hands around them.”

 

Focus and localize

With “special government employee” Elon Musk leading efforts to overhaul the federal bureaucracy (may require subscription), much early news from the new administration has centered on actions in Washington D.C., such as funding freezes and mass layoffs.

But any actions that involve environmental activities will affect communities nationwide. Journalists can connect the dots.

 

‘Environmental issues are one of the

best opportunities to localize national

news and put it in a community context.’

        — Eric Lipton, investigative reporter,

                               The New York Times

 

“Environmental issues are one of the best opportunities to localize national news and put it in a community context,” New York Times investigative reporter Eric Lipton tells us. “Instead of rehashing national issues, look at local effects. Virtually everything the new administration does in this area will have state and community relevance that just needs to be drawn out.”

For example, regulatory changes affecting the electric power industry could influence utility decisions about when to retire power plants — particularly older, fossil fuel-powered units — and about investments in new generating sources.

Trump has already ordered the Interior Department to stop leasing new tracts for offshore wind energy projects and has frozen federal grants for many clean energy programs (may require subscription). These actions will create clear winners and losers at the state and local levels.

So will potential contractions at federal agencies. “Focus on what specifically matters to your state,” advises Craig Pittman, a columnist at the Florida Phoenix and former reporter at the Tampa Bay Times. “I’m watching what they do with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, both of which are hugely important here in Florida.”

Trump and his homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, have called for eliminating FEMA, which delivers federal aid to areas struck by natural disasters, and having states manage these efforts. There also are proposals for major staff cuts at NOAA and privatization of its national weather forecasting work (may require subscription).

For states like Florida that are frequently hit by hurricanes, such steps would have huge implications. Elsewhere, the issues might be increased leasing for oil and gas projects on federal lands, or weakened air pollution standards that worsen urban air quality.

“Find people who will be affected by these policies, and ask them what they're worried about,” suggests Liza Gross, a reporter for Inside Climate News based in northern California.

Gross frequently covers issues affecting farm workers in California’s Salinas Valley, such as failures to regulate pesticide use effectively. “Wherever you are, you'll have a regional EPA office that is responsible for executing the Trump administration’s actions, and you can compare conditions before the new Trump term to now.”

 

Finding sources and data

As the Trump administration moves to shrink federal agencies and replace workers who are presumed not to support its agenda, finding sources could become more challenging.

Federal employees who remain in place may be reluctant to speak to journalists for fear of losing their jobs. On the other hand, people who have left the government may be valuable resources.

Getting access to the people working the gears will be harder, advises one journalist. Above, a reporter talks to a wildlife biologist. Photo: National Park Service/Kevin Bacher via Flickr Creative Commons (Public Domain).

“Agencies will give you policy statements, but getting access to the people working the gears will be harder,” says Tim Wheeler, associate editor and senior writer for the (Chesapeake) Bay Journal and chair of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Freedom of Information Task Force.

“Federal employees who have been fired or have quit are worth finding because they will have institutional memory,” he adds. “Unions can be a resource for connecting with them.”

Journalists are also using online forums, such as Reddit’s r/fednews thread, to reach federal workers who are willing to talk about their experiences.

Officials below the federal level may be more approachable.

“If a Trump administration action has a direct effect on environmental enforcement, find sources who can talk to you about their experience on the ground with that level of enforcement,” recommends Bobby Magill, who covers water, public lands and the Interior Department for Bloomberg Law.

“State agencies are good for this, and so are cities that have been subject to EPA enforcement actions,” he adds. “This is also where public information requests come in handy.”

Public interest groups that track federal actions are also valuable resources.

“The clampdown on information now is a real challenge,” warns freelance journalist Maya Kapoor, who covered the impacts of Trump’s first term in the West for High Country News. “Watchdog groups like Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative may be more fruitful sources than government insiders this time around.”

Other groups are racing to archive federal environmental data on topics such as climate change and environmental justice that the new administration is removing from agency websites.

 

Law and disorder

Journalists should also have legal experts on their source lists.

During Trump’s first term, his administration sought to reverse, revoke or alter more than 100 environmental rules, although many of these efforts were blocked in court. The new administration already faces dozens of lawsuits on issues ranging from civil liberties to immigration policy and federal personnel actions.

Magill recommends finding scholars specializing in natural resources or administrative law who can comment on the legality of proposed actions. Advocacy groups litigating the issues can also help explain whether the Trump administration’s positions are likely to hold up in court.

The federal government’s Public Access to Court Electronic Records service, familiarly known as PACER, provides instantaneous public electronic access to all documents filed at federal courts and is another tool for covering court battles.

“Read agencies’ legal briefs, which is where they reveal their strategies,” Magill says. PACER charges fees, but exemptions are available, including for academic researchers and nonprofit organizations. Organizations litigating a case may also be able to provide access to relevant legal documents.

 

Protect yourself and your sources

In and out of office, Trump has a long record of suing news outlets (may require subscription). Now, that effort has ramped up, with conservatives pressing the Supreme Court to revisit U.S. libel laws (may require subscription) and New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 case that set a high threshold for libel claims by public figures.

Anyone covering the Trump administration should take the risk of legal challenges seriously, journalists warn. “Know your libel and defamation law,” says Wheeler.

And consider steps to improve your cybersecurity. The National Association of Science Writers has compiled a list of digital safety resources for journalists, including privacy checklists and guidelines for using the encrypted Signal messaging service.

 

‘You should have a plan for how

to keep your sources safe, …

especially if you're going to talk

off the record or conceal identities.’

       — Maya Kapoor, freelance journalist

 

Protecting the identity of sources, including potential whistleblowers inside the federal government, is also essential. “You should have a plan for how to keep your sources safe, or how your publication will do that, especially if you're going to talk off the record or conceal identities,” offers Kapoor.

These measures are familiar to journalists who do investigative work. “I always connect whistleblowers with an attorney before I interview them, and use Signal or other secure links and air-gapped laptops to communicate with them,” says Drilled Media’s Westervelt.

She also recommends screening potential sources carefully and considering the possibility that a contact could be catfishing — using a fake identity to deceive or harass you.

“When I covered Elon Musk 15 years ago as a clean tech reporter, I often was offered tips that turned out to be false stories clearly intended to discredit me and my outlet,” Westervelt notes.

Freelance journalists, for their part, should pay particular attention to indemnity clauses in contracts, which may require the writer to indemnify the publication for any legal costs or claims.

More limited indemnity clauses — for instance, that hold the writer responsible if they deliver material that plagiarizes other sources or is independently judged to be libelous — can be acceptable. But blanket indemnity clauses can expose freelancers to huge legal judgments. For some journalists, it may make sense to take out liability insurance.

 

Hunting down policy holes

Despite the challenges, press reports have already spotlighted gaps between the new administration’s promises and its results.

One example is Trump’s directive to the Army Corps of Engineers to release water from California dams in the wake of the January wildfires in Los Angeles.

Media coverage made clear that this action sent several billion gallons of water to farms far from Los Angeles, at a time when they didn’t need it, reducing supplies for the summer growing season.

The Bay Journal’s Wheeler has his own reminder that many of Trump’s first-term proposals evaporated.

During the president’s previous term, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sought to eliminate federal funding for Chesapeake Bay cleanup work — and for the Bay Journal itself, which had received EPA support since 1991.

The newspaper successfully sued to have its grant restored, and Congress ignored Trump’s requests to slash funds for bay restoration.

These days for Wheeler, what’s ahead means journalists will have to concentrate on doing what they do best. It’s a reminder, he reflects, that “Change calls on us to do our jobs.”

Jennifer Weeks, contributing editor to SEJournal, is a freelance editor and writer and a former board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. She recently served as senior environment and energy editor at The Conversation U.S. from 2015 to 2024.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 9. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.