‘energy, explained’ podcast: Environmental rights in Pa.: New life for a forgotten amendment

• Scott Blanchard/WITF
  BioRecent Stories

  

  As director of journalism, I work on things like newsroom strategy, culture, ethics, and training; I work with reporters (mainly climate reporter Rachel McDevitt) on stories; and I'm deeply involved with our community engagement efforts and collaborations with other news organizations.
  
  My roots in journalism go back to growing up outside Washington, D.C., reading Woodward and Bernstein in my hometown paper, and being drawn to the ideals of freedom of the press and holding the powerful to account. I also idolized the Post’s sports columnists, and in fact was a sports reporter/editor before I moved to news.
  
  I followed journalism’s call to the University of Missouri, then to jobs in Virginia and Maryland before landing in Pennsylvania, and I’ve lived near Gettysburg for more than two decades. Living in rural Pa. helps inform my work as a journalist and my belief that listening is one of the most important things we can do.
  
  If I’m not doing journalism stuff, I may be traveling, bird-watching, or both.

Marie Cusick/StateImpact Pennsylvania

The Pine Creek Gorge, also known as Pennsylvania's "Grand Canyon."

StateImpact Pennsylvania reporter Marie Cusick was intrigued about Pennsylvania’s environmental rights amendment: How voters overwhelmingly approved it almost 50 years ago, and how it basically was ignored after that — until a couple of recent court decisions in cases related to natural gas drilling.

She talked to the former legislator who had the idea for the amendment — Franklin Kury, now 82 — and he became a key part of the documentary Cusick produced called “Generations Yet to Come: Enivronmental Rights in Pennsylvania.” The half-hour program airs 8 p.m. Thursday Oct. 25 on WITF-TV, and 8:30 p.m. Friday Oct. 26 on WQED-TV. (Check your local listings for other air dates and times, or watch it on this website beginning Friday.)

In StateImpact’s latest episode of the podcast “energy, explained,” you can hear Cusick talk about her reporting, the amendment and how it has gotten new life after all these years. Listen here:

You can subscribe to “energy, explained” wherever you find podcasts.

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About StateImpact Pennsylvania

StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania.

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