The National Press Foundation is pleased to grant the 2023 Thomas L. Stokes Award for Best Energy and Environment Writing to Public Health Watch, a nonprofit investigative news organization based in Austin, Texas.
Journalists David Leffler, Savanna Strott, Salina Arredondo, Jana Cholakovska, Jim Morris, Nazmul Ahasan and Susan White contributed to the winning series “Toxic Texas Air,” an investigation revealing that environmental agencies did little to address known problems at the ITC chemical facility east of Houston before a dangerous fire there in 2019 that released carcinogens into the surrounding area.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality knew about but failed to stop high benzene emissions in the majority-Latino community of Channelview, Texas, for nearly two decades, Public Health Watch reported.
Their reporting prompted state Sen. Carol Alvarado to begin drafting corrective legislation and the EPA Office of Inspector General to consider an investigation. Their work was published by other news outlets, including The Texas Tribune and Houston Landing. Public Health Watch continues to follow the story and held a town hall in 2024 to hear from Harris County residents.
NPF judges called it “heroic” and “an exemplar of exactly the kind of impact local journalism can have.”
Brianna Sacks of The Washington Post Wins Honorable Mention
NPF judges chose to deliver an honorable mention distinction this year to The Washington Post’s extreme weather reporter Brianna Sacks, whose investigation into insurance claims after Hurricane Ian showed that insurers were overruling their own adjusters to pay just a fraction of damage estimates.
Judges called the reporting “breathtaking” and a “fabulous [series] of narrative work” that showed the human impact of corporate and government injustice.
Florida’s legislature has since passed a law curtailing companies’ ability to overrule adjusters, which the sponsor of the legislation attributed to The Post’s reporting.
About the Stokes Award
The judges noted the quality of entries improve every year and particularly lauded non-profit newsrooms for undertaking in-depth reporting on the environment.
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 (in 2024 the award is for work completed in 2023).
NPF is grateful to this year’s judges:
- Eli Cahan, an investigative journalist and winner of last year’s Stokes award
- Tom Davidson, an NPF board member and lecturer at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism
- Debbie Elliott, NPR national correspondent
- Ronnie Greene, Bloomberg Law chief investigative reporter
- Rod Kuckro, a freelancer with 40 years of newsroom experience, most recently at E&E News
