We typically reach out when we have a new story to highlight. But we thought we would share a recap of our past few months, which included powerful stories, new publishing partners, and a burst of syndicated articles. Along the way, FERN’s collaborative model was cited as a smart way forward in journalism — a sign of how our profile is rising in the media world.
Terror in the Heartland
By Ted Genoways
The New Republic
After the FBI broke up an election-night plot by homegrown extremists to bomb an apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, that housed Muslim meatpacking workers from Somalia, the town’s response — to protect and reassure those workers — reflected Garden City’s long history of officially embracing the immigrants who come to work in the area’s packing plants. This piece provided a window into just what the “Heartland” is these days — and how much more complex it is than the simple urban/rural, multicultural/white divides we often hear about. Ted was interviewed on WNYC’s The Takeaway and the piece was cited by Longform, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Politico’s Playbook.
African Americans have lost untold acres of farmland over the last century
By Leah Douglas
The Nation
The story explained how an arcane law enabled the theft of millions of acres of land from African-Americans over the last century, and how it remains a problem today. This piece, too, got a fair amount of media attention — Leah was interviewed by KCRW’s Good Food, America’s Work Force Radio, and The Scholars’ Circle— and was cited by advocacy groups like Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and Pesticide Action Network.
Inside the multi-million-dollar world of eel trafficking
By Rene Ebersole
National Geographic
It tells, in wonderful detail, the story of how the father of New England’s glass-eel industry got caught up in the black-market boom when the global eel supply tightened. This was our first major piece with NatGeo (we published two shorter items with its blog, The Plate), and it was a reminder of how a partner with the audience and global brand of National Geographic can really boost our visibility. NatGeo has more than 18 million Twitter followers, and when it retweeted our tweet of the story, the numbers were impressive: Nearly 400,000 impressions and more than 6,500 engagements.
How Vermont tackled farm pollution and cleaned up its waters
By Paul Greenberg
EatingWell
This story looked at how Vermont’s efforts to reduce agricultural runoff in iconic Lake Champlain could serve as a model for other states — especially given the federal government’s current hostility toward environmental measures. We also produced an animated map of water pollution issues around the nation. In a testimonial, EatingWell’s Editor-in-Chief Jessie Price said: “When you work with FERN, it’s like having a whole add-on wing to your editorial team that brings spot-on insights about the topics, careful editing, contacts with great writers and creative solutions for delivering information graphically.”
No offense American bees, but your sperm isn’t cutting it
By Ryan Bell
NPR’s The Salt
The latest in FERN’s ongoing coverage of the plight of honeybees, this story examines an effort to diversify the pollinator’s gene pool as a way to counter the varroa mite, which is a leading culprit in the bee’s population decline. An advantage of partnering with The Salt is that the story moves beyond NPR’s social media reach of 6 million readers. Our bee story was republished online by almost a dozen NPR affiliates across the country.
New coverage for Ag Insider
Finally, we’re always looking for ways to repurpose our policy-focused Ag Insider articles, and this quarter we placed four with Mother Jones:
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“In India, a Better Economy Means More Chickens—and Loads More Antibiotics,” by Maryn McKenna, who writes about antibiotics for Ag Insider.
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“We Have No Way of Knowing if This Scary Superbug Has Already Hit the United States,” by Maryn McKenna
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“The Meat Industry Refuses to Track Drugs on America’s Farms—and It’s Making Superbugs Worse,” by Maryn McKenna
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“Monsanto Just Got Hit With a Lawsuit It Didn’t See Coming,” by Chuck Abbott.
We also want to highlight a few more media hits: Ben Goldfarb, who wrote The Codfather for FERN and Mother Jones in March 2017, was interviewed by KCRW’s Good Food and Nieman Storyboard. Meanwhile, both the American Press Institute and Nieman Lab cited FERN in pieces they did on the success, and importance, of collaborative journalism. And I was part of a panel on media partnerships at the Institute for Nonprofit News. What we do is working, and it’s good for journalism. Nice to see folks acknowledging our work.
As always, we appreciate your interest in FERN and support for our work. We couldn’t do it without you.
Best,
Sam Fromartz
Editor-in-Chief
The Food & Environment Reporting Network
@FERNnews
@fromartz