When residents in southwest Tucson first discovered their drinking water was contaminated with chemicals used to clean airplane parts in 1985, they did not learn about it from government agencies or the county bulletin. The scandal—perpetuated by Hughes Aircraft Co, which spent 30 years dumping trichloroethylene in Tucson waterways—was revealed by the Arizona Daily Star through over a year of consistent reporting. Advocates like Rose Marie Augustine, one of the foundational environmental justice movement leaders in the Southwest United States, said that without that reporting, she would not have been spurred to action. Without reporters like Jane Kay covering the issue consistently for over a year, the predominantly Latinx population of south side Tucson would probably still be drinking that contaminated water.

Journalism has long served as an early warning system and as a form of accountability against environmental harm. Stories like that of Tucson in the early 1980s are emblematic of a larger relationship between communities and institutions that disseminate information.

The birth of the in Warren County, NC, got a similar start. While weeks of protest and arrests would become the launching point for the movement, it was consistent local coverage by outlets like the Daily Tar Heel, the Carolina Times, and photojournalists like then-Duke student Jenny Labalme that pushed the marches into the path of Time Magazine, CBS, and the Washington Post. The Post would go on to compare the marches, songs, and grit of organizers like Dollie Burwell, now considered the mother of the movement, to that of the civil rights movement 20 years prior.

Journalism once again nationalized environmental injustices in 1987, following the landmark Toxic Waste and Race Report, with advocates like Vernice Miller-Travis using first-of-its-kind geospatial data to highlight the disproportionate placement of toxic facilities in predominantly Black, Indigenous, and communities of color. The report gained traction after The New York Times reporter Lena Williams published a review of the study for a national audience. The trend can be seen with more contemporary issues, as in 2014, journalist Curt Guyette used his position at the ACLU of Michigan to surface community concerns and scientific findings that uncovered lead contamination of drinking water in Flint, MI.

Read the full article about environmental justice journalism by Peter Bruk, Mia Smotritsky, Maria Capellua, Tae Hong, and Duaa Alzouby at Nonprofit Quarterly.