Shannon Service’s October 2014 story in The Guardian on the “shady dealings” of a massive Chinese tuna-fishing firm had real-world impact. Notorious for going after threatened species like Yellowfin and Bigeye, the China Tuna Industry Group was forced to withdraw its IPO application after negative media coverage, including our piece, exposed the company’s nefarious operation.

In January 2013, FERN expanded its broadcast collaboration with its first international report and first radio story, “Tuna’s Last Stand,” which appeared on PRI’s The World. Shannon Service reported from Palau in the Western Pacific, where the island-nation struggled to protect the world’s last healthy stock of tuna. The full investigation appeared online at Slate as “The Saudi Arabia of Sashimi” in early April of that year. The story received 1,100 likes on Facebook, was tweeted 257 times, including by Mark Bittman (529,000+ followers), Michael Pollan (575,000+ followers), Slate (1.7M+ followers) and Slow Food USA (477,000+ followers). In June 2013, the story was translated and republished by Newsweek Japan.