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National Magazine Award finalist: Switchyard Food Issue
The Switchyard Food Issue is a finalist for a 2024 National Magazine Award in the category of Single-Topic Issue. This is one of two National Magazine Awards for which FERN is a finalist in 2024. Read More
FERN Investigation Drives Political Action on Pesticides Near Schools
In April 2015, we took another deep dive into the issue of farmworker health with The Nation. Liza Gross’s unsettling piece, “Fields of Toxic Pesticides Surround the Schools of Ventura County,” revealed how California’s Latino communities—and the public schools they attend—are …
We Tackle Fracking in One of the Nation’s Most Popular Lifestyle Magazines
Our March 2014 story, “Nervous Energy,” on the potential impact of fracking on the food and water of California, appeared in Sunset Magazine, which has a monthly circulation of nearly 1.3 million. A companion radio piece was broadcast on Capital Public Radio to …
FERN Shines Spotlight on Regulatory Void and Looming Public-Health Crisis in Legal Weed Industry
In October 2015, "With No U.S. Standards, Pot Pesticide Use Is Rising Public Health Threat" was produced for broadcast and online in collaboration with Rocky Mountain PBS I-News. Reporters Erica Berry, of FERN, and Katie Wilcox, of I-News, found a glaring absence of oversight on …
A Riveting Reminder of the Vietnam War’s Ongoing Fallout
George Black’s powerful cover story, “The Lethal Legacy of the Vietnam War,” in The Nation, showed how tons of unexploded ordnance, herbicides, and defoliants the U.S. dropped on Vietnam during the war continue to plague farmers there today. The piece, which …
Our Reporting on Toxins and Pollution
FERN Series