I have friends that call it a boondoggle, but I thought it was one of the greatest assignments I could ever get, to get out of the newsroom for a couple of months and walk along and meet people and see some of this iconic trail in the U.S. I hiked more than 500 miles on the Appalachian Trail, part of a relay hike with four other newspapers on the East Coast. So shortly after that, I did an Appalachian Trail hike. Hopey: I worked at the Pittsburgh Press for 10 years, and when the Press was purchased by the Post-Gazette, I came over and that was January 1993. Kara Holsopple: What are some of the other big issues that you covered early in your career?
That law is still on the books, and there are several other places now where mining is off-limits. We were able to show that this is an area that shouldn’t be mined, and that area was actually either the first or the second area in the state of Pennsylvania that was declared unsuitable for mining because it was just too good naturally. I think we did about 80 stories over the course of a year and a half, and did our own water quality testing. There were lots of brook trout streams in the area, and to strip-mined that area would have killed the brook trout fishery. I covered City Hall there, but there was a proposal by the city authority to strip mine an area around the Horseshoe Curve. I would say my first big environmental story was when I was at the Altoona Mirror. My dad took me and my four brothers fishing quite often, on trips around the tri-state area, in the Allegheny National Forest, up the Allegheny River Tionesta, Tidioute. Hopey: I always was interested in the outdoors. Kara Holsopple: How did you get started covering environmental issues? Did you always have an interest? The Allegheny Front’s Kara Holsopple checks in with our colleague about the environmental beat he has pursued all these years. Hopey has covered the environment in the Pittsburgh region for more than 25 years, through reporting on air pollution, long-wall mining and the advent of fracking. One of the latest reporters to leave is Don Hopey. It has resulted in many journalists leaving the paper because of concerns over management’s treatment of staff and newsgathering, and through buyouts. There’s an ongoing union labor dispute at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
0 kommentar(er)
