As the 2020 election fast approaches, we’d like to take a moment to look back at the past four years and be transparent about our plans for the coming months.
Regular readers probably know that The Revelator is published by the Center for Biological Diversity, a 501(c)3 nonprofit devoted to environmental issues. We’re editorially independent from the Center — we choose what stories we tell and how we tell them — but as employees of the nonprofit we’re also bound by the same rules that govern its operations.
That’s why you’ll read less about the Trump administration in these virtual pages in the months ahead. Nonprofits like ours must follow rules set by the Internal Revenue Service that prohibit what’s known as electioneering — advocating for or against, directly or by implication, any specific political candidate or party. That includes the presidential race, as well as federal and state races all the way down the ballot.
For environmental journalists, this obviously puts a few limitations on the types of stories we can tell until after Nov. 3, but there’s still a lot that we can — and will — talk and write about.
For one thing, government agencies and their employees aren’t running for elected office, and they still need watchdogs. For another, people around the country will soon get the chance to vote on environmental ballot initiatives and similar legislation, and there’s a need to educate readers about these issues. And of course, there’s still plenty of new science coming out about endangered species, climate change, pollution and related topics that need coverage — perhaps more than ever as the election takes over the rest of the media landscape.
Meanwhile the work we’ve done covering the Trump administration since 2017 remains something that our readers can look back on to help educate themselves about critical issues.
And on that note, here are a few of our top related stories. We haven’t covered everything the Trump administration has done since taking office — who could? — but you’ll find an interesting cross section of articles that address both politics and broader environmental topics. And those are issues that will remain at the forefront until — and long beyond — the 2020 election.
