Pulitzer Center Update February 16, 2024
Misplaced Trust
Project
Misplaced Trust
Fourteen public universities founded with stolen Indigenous land are still profiting from it.
Land-Grant Universities' Lucrative Secret
Over the past year, a small team of journalists, data gurus, and researchers led by the independent media organization Grist analyzed publicly available data to uncover millions of acres of land taken from Indigenous nations across the United States. These lands provide revenue to land-grant universities through industries such as fossil fuel exploration, mining, and timber harvesting. The team located and mapped more than 8.2 million acres of land taken from nearly 130 Indigenous nations that have generated billions of dollars for 14 land-grant universities.
The series, Misplaced Trust, explores how stolen wealth continues to transform public U.S. institutions. It is bound to provoke interest among presidents, chancellors, provosts, deans, and students at academic institutions, whether they are land-grant universities or not.
This latest reporting is built on the foundation of its groundbreaking forerunner, High Country News' Land-Grab Universities, an epic multi-year project launched by Grist editor Tristan Ahtone and historian Bobby Lee involving numerous talented data and journalism collaborators. The Pulitzer Center chose to help support both reporting projects because they embody the spirit of collaboration and relentless pursuit of the truth that we value so highly when it comes to ambitious journalism, distribution, and audience reach.
From the outset, the Grist team's strategy involved empowering local newsrooms to do their own reporting on the data. As the team neared publication, it invited newsrooms, such as The Salt Lake Tribune, to training sessions on how to derive their own local stories from the datasets. Grist is publishing a list of stories that use the project's reporting and data over the next weeks and months. Grist has made the data from the project publicly available as well as its data methodology and a data user guide.
Since publication, the first article, “The Extractive Industries Filling Public University Coffers on Stolen Land,” has been republished seven times and shared widely in newsletters. Grist continues to engage with journalists across the U.S. It will provide additional training to journalists interested in using the data on February 21 at a Society of Environmental Journalists webinar, and during two sessions at the NICAR conference in March.
This is public service journalism at its finest. The dedication and hard work of the Grist team in unearthing the truth and sharing the public datasets makes this an issue that is impossible for universities, staff, students, and local campus communities to ignore.
Best,
Impact
A new report, "Climate and Environmental Journalism Under Fire," by the International Press Institute outlines threats to free and independent coverage of climate change and environmental degradation in 2024. The report is the result of interviews with nearly 40 environmental and climate journalists worldwide, exploring the risks and challenges they face. In the report, the authors thank the Pulitzer Center for being a valuable contact for at-risk climate and environmental journalists. Read the work here.
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