Founded | 2011 |
---|---|
Founder | Joshua Boaz Pribanic and Melissa Troutman |
Type | nonprofit |
Focus | Investigative Journalism |
Location |
|
Website | PublicHerald.org |
Public Herald is a non-profit investigative news organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Launched in 2011 by Joshua Pribanic and Melissa Troutman, Public Herald is known for their investigative reporting on fracking activity and its effect on water in Pennsylvania. Their slogan is, "media by and for the public interests."
Public Herald has been active in environmental issues, publishing the films “Triple Divide", “Triple Divide [Redacted]”, and "Invisible Hand", and producing reports on fracking and its effects on groundwater in Pennsylvania. Public Herald also launched Fileroom.org, which collects information on oil and gas and makes those records available online so they are accessible to both the public and journalists.
The works of Public Herald have had widespread coverage in environmental journalism, editorials, [1] [2] and major news media, including NPR Marketplace, [3] [4] Rolling Stone, [5] The Washington Post, [6] and The New York Times. [7] Their work has also been referenced in the books "Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America" by Eliza Griswald, [8] "Legal Rights for Rivers: Competition, Collaboration and Water Governance" [9] by Erin O'Donnell and "Sustainability and the Rights of Nature: An Introduction" [10] by Cameron La Follette, Chris Maser.
In 2013, Public Herald released the film "Triple Divide" which documented regulator misconduct surrounding the controversial practice of fracking. [11] [12] [13]
On September 21, 2015, Public Herald released a report titled "Ways Pennsylvania DEP Water Contamination Cases Related to Fracking are “Cooked”. [14]
In 2017, Public Herald released its second feature-length documentary, “Triple Divide [Redacted] which expanded on what was covered in "Triple"Divide". [15]
In 2020, Public Herald released a documentary titled "Invisible Hand" which focuses on the story of Rights of Nature through Grant Township, previously reported by Public Herald. [16] The film discusses democracy, capitalism, and rights of nature. Mark Ruffalo is the executive producer for INVISIBLE HAND, and narrator of all 3 films. The films are directed by Melissa Troutman and Joshua Boaz Pribanic.
PublicHerald.org reports have been cited by multiple academic articles [17] [18] [19]
In 2015, Public Herald created the online resource #fileroom, located at publicfiles.org, to collect information about oil and gas which is open to the public and journalists to contribute to or access. There are categories for complaints, permits, waste, GMI (Gas Migration Investigation), and a legal section for court cases and law that is related oil/gas in Pennsylvania or the Department of Environmental Protection. [20]
In 2014, The Investigative News Network & the Knight Foundation awarded $35,000 through the Innovation Fund for the work on "Triple Divide".
Awards and Festivals [21]
Kirby Bryan Dick is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best known for directing documentary films. He received Academy Award nominations for Best Documentary Feature for directing Twist of Faith (2005) and The Invisible War (2012). He has also received numerous awards from film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Festival.
Ivy Film Festival (IFF) is the world's largest student-run film festival, hosted annually on the campus of Brown University. The Festival was started in 2001 by then-Brown juniors David Peck and Justin Slosky in collaboration with students of the other seven Ivy League schools including vice chairman Doug Imbruce from Columbia University. The founders' goal was to create a venue to showcase and honor the work of talented student filmmakers. The Ivy Film Festival currently accepts submissions from around the world for both its short film and screenplay competitions.
Šarūnas Bartas is a Lithuanian film director. He is one of the most prominent Lithuanian film directors internationally from the late 20th century. His 2015 film Peace to Us in Our Dreams was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. His film In the Dusk was part of the official selection of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival.
Renée Scheltema is a Dutch documentary filmmaker and photographer, living in Cape Town, South Africa. She has been making documentaries for 35 years.
The Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital is the largest environmental film festival in the world. The festival is held annually March in Washington, D.C., presenting more than 100 films to an audience of over 30,000. Often combined with thematic discussions and social events, the films screen at museums, embassies, libraries, universities and local theaters.
Burning the Future: Coal in America is a 2008 documentary film produced and directed by David Novack. The film focuses on the impacts of mountaintop mining in the Appalachians, where mountain ridges are scraped away by heavy machinery to access coal seams below, a process that is cheaper and faster than traditional mining methods but is damaging to the environment. Some environmental problems discussed in the film include disfigured mountain ranges, extinct plant and animal species, toxic groundwater, and increased flooding. The film's run time is 89 minutes. In 2012, it was rereleased in a shorter, updated version, that was created for public broadcast on PBS. This new version of the film's run time is 56 minutes.
Gasland is a 2010 American documentary film written and directed by Josh Fox. It focuses on communities in the United States where natural gas drilling activity was a concern and, specifically, on hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), a method of stimulating production in otherwise impermeable rock. The film was a key mobilizer for the anti-fracking movement, and "brought the term 'hydraulic fracturing' into the nation's living rooms" according to The New York Times.
Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space is a documentary film by Denis Delestrac with a music score by Amon Tobin. The film deals with the issue of space weapons and their politics, featuring interviews with several key United States military personnel, academics such as Noam Chomsky and others, including Martin Sheen. The film won the Best Documentary award at the 2009 Whistler Film Festival and has been selected in a number of international film festivals.
Josh Fox is an American film director, playwright and environmental activist, best known for his Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning 2010 documentary, Gasland. He is the founder and artistic director of a film and theater company in New York City, International WOW, and has contributed as a journalist to Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, NowThis, AJ+ and Huffington Post.
Promised Land is a 2012 American drama film directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Frances McDormand, Rosemarie DeWitt and Hal Holbrook. The screenplay by Damon and Krasinski is based on a story by Dave Eggers. Promised Land follows two petroleum landmen who visit a rural Pennsylvania town in an attempt to buy drilling rights from the local residents.
Elemental is a 2012 documentary film directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and Gayatri Roshan. The film was premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival on October 9, 2012, in Mill Valley, California.
Shark Island Productions is a documentary film production company based in Sydney, Australia, creates extensive education, outreach and community engagement campaigns with its films. It is the production arm of Shark Island Institute.
Tattoo is a 2014 Italian dramatic short film directed by Riccardo Di Gerlando.
Frackman is a 2015 Australian documentary film about the former construction worker turned anti-fracking activist Dayne Pratzky as he responds to the expansion of the coal seam gas industry near Tara, Queensland. The film was produced by Richard Todd of Aquarius Productions, Simon Nasht of Smith & Nasht and with Trish Lake of Freshwater Pictures and was Directed by Richard Todd of Aquarius Productions. The film also features the president of Lock the Gate, Drew Hutton, conservative radio personality Alan Jones and many other residents of Queensland and New South Wales.
Barbara Sumner is a New Zealand writer and film producer. Tree of Strangers, her memoir of adoption, loss and discovery, was published by Massey University Press in September 2020.
Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers is a Canadian filmmaker, actor, and producer. She has won several accolades for her film work, including multiple Canadian Screen Awards.
Hawa Essuman is a film director based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her 2017 feature-length documentary Silas, co-directed with Anjali Neyar, tells the story of Liberian environmental activist Silas Siakor's fight to preserve the country's rainforests from commercial logging. The film won multiple awards, including the Amnesty International Durban Human Rights Award (2018) and the Audience Award for best documentary at the RiverRun International Film Festival (2018). Hawa's first feature film, Soul Boy (2010), also received a series of awards. In addition, Hawa has produced a range of TV programmes, commercial films, music videos and adverts.
Rights of nature or Earth rights is a legal and jurisprudential theory that describes inherent rights as associated with ecosystems and species, similar to the concept of fundamental human rights. The rights of nature concept challenges twentieth-century laws as generally grounded in a flawed frame of nature as "resource" to be owned, used, and degraded. Proponents argue that laws grounded in rights of nature direct humanity to act appropriately and in a way consistent with modern, system-based science, which demonstrates that humans and the natural world are fundamentally interconnected.
Gunjan Menon is an Indian wildlife film director, camerawoman, and National Geographic Explorer.
Seed Mob, officially Seed Indigenous Youth Climate Network Ltd and also known simply as Seed, is an independent Indigenous youth climate network in Australia. Established in 2014, it is led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people and relies on donations by supporters and partners who align with their values. In 2018 Seed released the documentary film Water is Life, which highlighted the dangers of fracking in the Northern Territory.