Tampa Bay Times launches environment hub

The Tampa Bay Times announced the launch of its environment hub, which will be comprised of four journalists and a coordinating editor.

Members include Max Chesnes, lead environment and climate reporter; Emily L. Mahoney, energy reporter; Michaela Mulligan, environment and climate reporter; Jack Prator, environment and breaking news reporter, and Chris Tisch, senior editor/environment, breaking news and justice.

Other journalists in the newsroom will contribute.

“We want to ensure we always have the reporting firepower to produce distinctive and meaningful journalism to serve Floridians,” said editor Mark Katches in a statement. There’s so much work to do. With sustained funding, our team will continue to report on environmental issues in Tampa Bay and extending into farmlands, lakes, springs and inland streams, where pollution and threats to species and habitat are front and center.”

The Times has a track record of environmental coverage, highlighted by its 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the “Poisoned” series, which exposed the dangers posed by a local lead smelter. Its latest investigation “Wasting Away” published this week. The report shows the immense toll that pollution takes on Florida’s waterways. The investigation found that 89,000 acres of seagrass has withered and died, and that has cost the lives of countless manatees that starved in recent years.

To help support the roughly $500,000 annual budget of the environment hub core team, the Tampa Bay Times is raising funds through grants and foundations, major gifts and community partnerships.