Who We Are
Founded in 2022, The New Lede is an award-winning newsroom dedicated to covering issues at the intersection of human and environmental health. We publish investigative reporting, analysis, explanatory articles and video reports on critical topics often overlooked by mainstream media — providing essential insight into the state of our air, water, food and climate. We also feature guest opinion pieces that reflect diverse perspectives on environmental challenges.
With a commitment to objectivity and truth — not advocacy — The New Lede brings readers timely coverage of issues shaping public policy and the future of our planet. Our staff is dedicated to traditional journalism that holds power accountable, exposes corruption and informs the public about the issues and policies affecting their lives.
The New Lede is a project of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) but operates independently from EWG’s advocacy and communications efforts. EWG has no influence over editorial content.
CONTACT US
The New Lede
1250 I Street NW
Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20005
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CORE PRINCIPLES
- Objective journalism is one of our central beliefs, striving to present more than one side of every issue and reporting facts without bias.
- Editorial decisions are made by The New Lede editors and are not necessarily reflective of the work or positions of EWG.
- Accuracy, fairness and relevancy form the foundation for our reporting. Fact checking is paramount and every effort is made to guarantee the truth of our output. We strive to always avoid inaccuracies and commit to swiftly acknowledging and correcting any that do occur.
- We abhor plagiarism.
- We will seek the consent of every person interviewed for any of the audio, print, video or other media that we produce, and portray them fairly and objectively.
- We will take every step to guard the identity of important sources, quoting them on background (not attributed by name) as required depending on the sensitivity of the story, but we will not grant background as a blanket pass for sources when the honest and objective approach would be to insist that the sources be on the record.
- Our journalistic judgments are made independently of EWG and other funders. Donors/funders do not dictate content, nor have a role in any editorial decision-making. We do not give supporters the right to assign, review or edit content. We provide transparency about our major funders.
- The New Lede follows guidelines outlined by the Society of Professional Journalists and its mission of “seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.”
- The New Lede staff do not engage in lobbying on environmental issues. Donations received by The New Lede are not used for lobbying.
OUR STAFF
Editor in Chief
Carey Gillam is a veteran investigative journalist with more than 30 years of experience.
913-526-6190
carey.gillam@thenewlede.org
@careygillam
Managing Editor
Brian Bienkowski is a veteran reporter and editor, and has received both local and national awards for his reporting.
Staff Reporter
Shannon Kelleher is a staff reporter based in Washington, DC.
Social Media Coordinator
Alex Hinton is a multimedia journalist, filmmaker, and the social media coordinator for The New Lede.
Unless otherwise indicated, The New Lede stories may be republished by news media outlets or nonprofits. Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license and can be copied and redistributed in any medium or format.
Please share our work under the following terms:
- You have to credit The New Lede and include the story’s original byline. At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by The New Lede.” You must link the name “The New Lede” to the original URL of the story.
- You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell our material separate or use our material for commercial purposes, but you can put our articles on pages with ads.
- If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. We have official accounts for The New Lede on Twitter (@thenewledenews).
- In republishing our work, you have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties.
Please contact our editors if you have any questions regarding republication.