Florida is a place with a wealth of environmental coverage. There’s a ground zero of climate change as an increasingly devastating and catastrophic hurricanes wreaking havoc up and down the state. The results are supported by rising seas and flooding on sunny days, dying corals and always powerful plumes of red tide. Pollution and other threats to our healthy environment surround us.
So, it is why Tampa Bay Times announces the creation of environmental hubs, and we have defined this topic as the core area of coverage. We want to ensure that we have the firepower to report on in order to produce unique and meaningful journalism that will be useful to Floridians.
First, the hub includes a team of four key reporters and coordination editors who work for the Times. Other journalists in our newsroom contribute to building deeper, sustainable coverage of the environment. I look forward to seeing this team grow even bigger. The more journalists are devoted to this subject, the more news and information you can provide.
In our view, how important is environmental coverage?
I have dedicated over a year to the latest investigation released this week. It shows the enormous sacrifices of contamination in Florida’s waterways. Reporters Zachary T. Sampson, Shreya Vutalur and Bethany Burns found that the state had no control over pollution permeating rivers, lagoons, lakes and bays. Millions of dollars spent on reducing pollution have proven ineffective, and the impact is immeasurable. Over 89,000 acres of sea grass have died and died, reporters found it due to excess phosphorus and nitrogen emanating from farms, developments and golf courses. Sea grass decimation produced the “dying” of the state’s beloved manatees. They were starved as algae flowers caused by excessive contamination destroyed the main food source.
Or, consider a tale drumbeat from Max Chesness and Emily L. Mahoney in 2024, revealing the state’s secret efforts to turn state parks into golf courses, pickle courts, hotels and disc golf. Our coverage was important and led to the rarest in Florida – fierce bipartisan opposition. After Gov. Ron DeSantis finally retreated, his former director of state parks praised our reporter, saying, “Without the light of good journalism, bad decisions are easy.”
Without the times, precious parks in the state could have looked quite different. And the readers realized this. “I am very pleased with your efforts, tenacity and excellent reporting,” one reader wrote.
Chesness is one of the main environmental reporters in the Southeast, and Mahoney is Florida’s only dedicated energy reporter. They are key members of our environmental hub, and Jack Platter and Michaela Mulligan have produced an attractive enterprise for the past year on climate, hurricanes, heat and local developments.
The Times has a strong track record of covering environmental hazards. Reports of the Piney Point catastrophe have neglected neglecting neglected practices by the industry and regulators in detail. Our reporting of the Tampa Company, which poisoned workers and polluted surrounding communities, won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize. The rising threat of our 2022 series foresaw the increasing risks posed by the Storm Surge, unfolding in a horrifying way during this past hurricane season. After Helen and Milton, a team of journalists documented widespread breakdowns in local sewage and stormwater infrastructure and how those failures affected the community.
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With sustained funding, our team continues to report on environmental issues around Tampa Bay, extending to farmlands, lakes, springs and inland streams where pollution and threats to species and habitat are front and center. Water quality has been in a statewide crisis.
The Times continues our mission to rely on community support to inform the public and hold strong interests accountable. More and more, this support to promote our mission comes from community grants and donations.
It raises funds from local family foundations and large charities to support the core team’s annual budget of around $500,000.
“We consider our skilled journalists and commitment to local news as an important voice in protecting the fragile Florida environment,” said Naomi Rutenberg, a St. Petersburg resident who made a significant contribution along with her husband, Robert Byrne. “That’s why we support a new environmental hub.”
There’s a lot of work ahead.
