Jennifer
I’ve had a hard time keeping it together while I’ve read the Seattle Times coverage of the Oso mudslide this week, mostly because of the horrific human toll but also because its reporters have covered the story so well from end to end. They’ve conveyed the mindblowing scale of the disaster with narratives, graphics, and coverage of the epic and heartbreaking search for survivors. But the staff has set itself apart by ferreting out the land use decisions that systemically and catastrophically failed to keep people safe. (Here, here, here, here, and here). It’s the kind of public service reporting that people seem to automatically expect from a hometown paper on a big story, but it’s by no means assured as fewer people feel obligated to pay for meaningful newsgathering. Fortunately, the people who are still at the paper are damn good at what they do.
Also, parents everywhere can rejoice that someone finally said this.
Alan
Jocelyn Zuckerman’s gripping exposé “Plowed Under” in the March/April American Prospect shows how bad policy prints out on the landscape. High row-crop prices, partly elevated by President George Bush’s 2007 mandates to boost ethanol in US motor fuels and partly boosted by the Mad Hatter incentives of American farm policy, have unleashed a giant wave of plowing on the Northern Plains. Native grasslands and wetlands—including the stunning, bird-rich prairie potholes—are shrinking at a pace unseen in decades. Grassland species are dwindling, pollinators are disappearing, and by the end of the article, you’ll see how it all starts in the money-corrupted Congress.
