The WATERSHED project, created by a 13-member team of University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC) undergraduate student journalists, received third place in the 2023 Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) Awards for Reporting on the Environment in the Outstanding Student Reporting category.

The project is the result of a six-month investigation of Florida’s water quality to mark the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act and the Florida Water Resources Act, landmark federal and state water laws passed in 1972. They pursued the question of whether water quality is worsening today, after the success of those laws. The series was published on WUFT News over five days in August 2022, in advance of other national projects that marked the Clean Water Act in October 2022.

The SEJ contest is the world’s largest and most comprehensive environmental journalism competition. This year, 589 entries in 10 categories were judged by independent volunteer panels of journalists and professors.

According to the judges, “This series took an in-depth look at how the landmark federal legislation affected Florida. The series maintains a strong narrative thread throughout the individual stories and uses human-scale anecdotes to help explain what could otherwise be an overwhelmingly technical subject.”

In August, WATERSHED received the 2023 Online Journalism Awards (ONA) Student Journalism Award in the Student Team Portfolio category.

Posted: October 3, 2023
Category: Alumni News, College News, Student News
Tagged as: Clean Water Act, Cynthia Barnett, Florida Water Resources Act, SEJ Awards for Reporting on the Environment, Watershed