Government

While issues like climate change have gained little traction in the presidential race, environmental topics are playing a clearer role in some congressional contests, as well in statehouse and local elections. At the same time, a number of controversial ballot initiatives are tackling environmental topics ranging from plastic bag bans to solar energy. Get info and resources in our Election 2016 Issue Backgrounder. 

The Paris Agreement took effect Nov 4, followed by the start of the United Nations meeting on climate change this week in Marrakesh. Can't go in person, but still want to track the critical issues at stake? TipSheet offers a guide on how to report Marrakesh from home. 

A promising new resource has begun helping reporters trying to use the Freedom of Information Act to pry loose government information relevant to their stories. The "FOIA Wiki" is a collaborative and explanatory collection of information meant to help you.

Investigative journalism is hardly about paper documents anymore. The cutting edge today is more likely to be requests for emails, as well as text messages, chats and other electronic communications such as Slack. This big challenge was front and center at the recent meeting of the National Freedom of Information Coalition.