“OPEN for Business”

For more about this image please follow @PublicHerald to read our upcoming report that investigates the case pictured here, as part of the "Invisible Hand" series. © jbpribanic — For more about this image please follow @PublicHerald to read our upcoming series “Invisible Hand” that investigates the story pictured here. © jbpribanic

It’s hard to believe that I can take this picture as the family living behind the business tells me there’s no help; no plan; no one to turn to. I’d expect to be photographing this scene alongside a story showcasing how problems are being solved, yet sadly this is not the reality.

Stories like this one are the reason that investigative journalists must work to protect the public interest, carefully documenting the many small cumulative parts of erosion in our democracy in the hope that this exposure will cultivate an assurance of fearless accountability.

Invisible Hand

Dr. Grace Ziem is interviewed by Public Herald for a fracking health impact investigation on complainant Dorene Dougherty. Read about her story: www.publicherald.org/archives/19670/fracking-2/. © jbpribanic

Invisible Hand investigates how the public manages external costs from economic forces within a democracy.

The first part of the series focuses on fracking in Pennsylvania, a place that’s become a model for lawmakers across the country. It currently holds some of the strongest oil and gas regulations on record in the largest shale play of the United States.

From the start, this series has helped spark national attention to the issue. Its claim to fame came in its debut story on complaints which peaked the interest of The Daily Show, wherein they created, with help from Public Herald, their first-ever segment on fracking.

This Public Herald project also shares its reports with the #fileroom, which is now in BETA Version 1.0 ». The #fileroom project is now actively being used by communities to share information with state regulators and industry. Community members in Springfield Twp., PA have cited it as their most accurate place for information – more accurate than what was given to them by both regulators and industry.

Death

An image from the Invisible Hand project at Public Herald. © jbpribanic

Death is here. It’s all over me. I made toast in the kitchen, and it died. I watched the rain die. I heard my voice die. Your voice, which I relied on, died. My vision died. My song died. My inner beach of comfort on sunset died. I have that cup for coffee, it died. Here, where I remember our confused hands learning; they died. And then, after I saw light die, and air die, erosion lived. My thread lives.

“My words about erosion are only a struggle to get people to appreciate the fact that thriving environments are deeply dependent on erosion to exist.”