From the Editor: Filling the Void

Thirty years ago, fresh from college in Wisconsin and headed to Florida to start my first job as a reporter, I never envisioned a day when newspapers would be struggling to serve their readers. That day has arrived. In-depth, comprehensive beat journalism, once an obligation, is now a luxury that many newspapers cannot afford. Starting today, Environmental Health News will help fill that void.

We will continue to provide instant access to daily news from publications around the world. Alongside that, we will present enterprise and breaking news from our own newsroom. In the vein of ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom for investigative reporters, Environmental Health News will publish independent, foundation-funded, non-advocacy journalism.

We believe that coverage of environmental issues must grow, not shrink, and, unlike most media, we don’t have to rely on advertising to survive. The world is struggling with an array of serious environmental problems growing in complexity all the time. We plan to bring you a diversity of stories from some of the best environmental writers, and we also will lend a voice to scientists and others. Don’t miss our first opinion piece, published today on our newly designed front page. It’s a provocative column on green chemistry, written by Carnegie Mellon’s Terry Collins. That, along with the Los Angeles Times’ two-day series that began on Sunday, will trigger a lively debate about what role industry and government should play in creating safer chemicals.

In one important way, chemists today are facing the same challenge as journalists. They are reinventing the substances they have relied on for decades, just as the media must reinvent journalism. The old ways just don’t work anymore. The audience has changed, and we must, too.

I will always be a newspaper reporter at heart. To me, and all of my colleagues in the newsroom, it was always a public service, not just a business.  Journalism is one of the greatest institutions that a democracy has. It will find a way to thrive, and we, at Environmental Health News, will light the way.