The Current GA Funds Coastal Environmental Lab

SAVANNAH, Ga. - EntSun -- The Current, Coastal Georgia's only nonprofit nonpartisan investigative news organization, will engage an experienced full-time reporter to cover the environment on the state's 100-mile coast as a result of gifts from two Georgia-focused family foundations.

The R. Howard Dobbs Jr. Foundation has awarded The Current $300,000 over a three-year period, and the Bobolink Foundation has awarded $60,000 over the same period to launch The Current's Coastal Environment Lab.

These initial gifts for the Environment Lab will allow The Current to hire a staff writer devoted to reporting on issues including sea level rise, pollution and key environmental issues in Georgia's coastal communities. While the reporting will focus substantially on accountability, it will also explain hidden threats and highlight solutions to intractable problems.

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Margaret Coker, The Current's editor in chief, said the news organization believes that providing the deeply reported, unbiased journalism about environmental challenges confronting Georgia's coastal residents is among the region's most pressing needs.

"With these gifts we will be able to tell underreported stories that affect all communities among the coast's 600,000 residents," Coker said. "Issues including rising sea levels and aging Superfund sites are important for business development, for our health and well-being and the health of our unique natural habitats."

Grey Matters Project, a Savannah-based nonprofit, launched The Current in September 2020 with Coker running the newsroom after a two-decade career as a prize-winning investigative journalist at Cox Newspapers, The Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Susan Catron, who has spent more than 30 years in journalism most recently as the executive editor of the Savannah Morning News, is The Current's managing editor.

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The Current is independent and nonpartisan and reports without fear or favor on public interest news stories from Savannah to Brunswick.

The Coastal Environment Lab is the first of The Current's four planned initiatives to tackle topics concerning Coastal Georgians. Through its community funded model of journalism, the newsroom will hire reporters focused on government accountability, education and health as well as fund the associated costs of in-depth independent journalism.

To join The Current's membership ranks of individuals and philanthropic foundations supporting independent journalism in Georgia, click https://thecurrentga.org/support-our-publication/