Hiroko Tabuchi from the New York Times has won the 2024 Thomas L. Stokes Award for Best Energy and Environment Writing from the National Press Foundation.
Tabuchi wrote a series for the Times about “forever chemicals,” and the negative effects they may have on farms, children and the nation as a whole, which Tabuchi reveals the EPA knew about.
“It was terrifying what she found. EPA has known that we’re poisoning our own food and has done nothing about it for nearly two decades. The storytelling was superb and clear. The stakes were laid out,” said judges. They praised the series for having “touched everything you’d want in a story in terms of going deep on all the different effects of PFAS and all the regulatory failures to create accountability.”
Tabuchi’s series explores the negligence of the regulators, who are fearful of the possible economic impacts of testing for these chemicals.
Miranda Green received an honorable mention from the judges for her work published in the media outlet Floodlight. Green’s work examined how Alabama’s largest electric utility infiltrated local media by financing a news service and buying an African-American newspaper, thereby limiting critical news coverage. She also reported how oil major Chevron controlled the news in Richmond, Calif., by owning the city’s primary news source. Her work also investigated misinformation about solar panels that was being spread in a conservative Ohio community.
Judges called Green’s work “terrific reporting … timely and revelatory.”
The Stokes Award was established in spring of 1959 to honor the late Thomas L. Stokes, a columnist on national affairs who had a personal interest in energy, natural resources and the environment. It is given annually for the best reporting in those subject areas. Each year it is given for work completed in the previous calendar year.
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