InvestigateWest, an award-winning, Seattle-based nonprofit that specializes in high-impact investigative journalism based on rigorous original reporting, is looking for help with a special project that includes our region.
InvestigateWest’s work is focused on the environment, public health, and government accountability issues. The organization is currently working in collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity and Columbia Journalism Investigations (a unit at the Columbia University journalism grad school that employs graduates of the school to do in-depth reporting on a project with the working title of “Hidden Epidemics.”
In an email, Executive Editor Robert McClure, formerly an investigative reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said InvestigateWest and 10 other local newsrooms are investigating the toll increasingly frequent natural disasters are taking on mental health, with a special focus on wildfires.
“We’re relying on the experiences of people across the country to shape that reporting,” McClure said. “We are asking people who have survived wildfires, hurricanes, or flooding during the past 10 years, and also mental health professionals who have worked with these people. The responses will be used to shape a series of news articles on the topic.”
“One of the major disasters we are interested in is the Okanogan complex fire in 2015, although we’re interested in finding anyone who has lived through wildfires,” McClure said.
If you would like to participate, access the survey at bit.ly/surveywildfire or call (202) 481-1252.
Participants in the survey can choose whether to allow a reporter to contact them for more information. All personal information will be confidential.
InvestigateWest was founded in 2009 after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer stopped publishing print edition, according to the organization’s website. Its revenue comes from foundation grants, news partners, and individual philanthropy.
For more information, visit http://www.invw.org.
