“EQT’s Gas Play,” a series illuminating the health impacts of fracking in nearby rural communities by Pittsburgh-based PublicSource, won the 2025 Victor K. McElheny Award for local and regional science journalism.
The detailed multimedia reporting follows the families who had to flee their homes, the failure of oversight bodies to protect residents and the PublicSource’s discovery that the company was aware of their growing footprint of destruction despite public claims to the contrary. The work by PublicSource, a local news outlet serving the southwestern Pennsylvania area, was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, remarked that the series “brilliantly tells the story of the harm done by unmonitored fracking in the state’s rural communities. We at the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT are proud to honor this kind of important and impactful local science journalism.”
EQT’s Gas Play
Hollowed Out – How Pittsburgh-based EQT’s expansion in West Virginia set for families reeling while state regulators trusted the company to answer their complaints.
EQT says fracked gas is a climate solution, but scientists call that deceptive greenwashing – The Pittsburgh corporation says its natural gas is saving the world, countering Russian aggression and solving the climate crisis. Numerous experts say that’s not true.
There is something wrong under New Freeport – After the 2022 frack out, residents report rashes, foul methane-spiked water and a problem that may be growing bigger. EQT denies responsibility, offering water for silence from residents. Documents and videos reveal undisclosed details.
In 2023, Quinn Glabicki, reporter and photojournalist for the series and member of the Report for America Corps, heard about several West Virginia families who believed their ongoing health issues were caused by the EQT fracking operation nearby. As Glabicki looked into the story, he realized that the complaints from the community “had gone largely unheeded by state and federal regulators.”
For those who don’t live in the area, Glabicki explains, “Anyone who lives in northern Appalachia is familiar with the extractive industry to some extent. Whether that’s through family members who’ve worked in steel mills and gas fields or those hazy skies and strange smells on orange air quality days, it has deep roots here.” The topic of the extractive industry fades into the background of everyday life, “as an accepted reality, or, as many have put it to me, ‘better than it used to be.’”
Glabicki sees local science reporting as a way to keep these issues from fading into the background, especially “the concerning bits of which can be obfuscated by parts per million measurements and ambient air standards.” Instead, Glabicki sees the importance of sharing this information with the community “and telling it in a way that is relatable and that spurs conversation and awareness.”
“We should not underestimate the power and importance of local science journalism,” Blum commented. “These reporters do remarkable work – smart, insightful, compassionate – illuminating the environmental and health challenges in their communities.”
Credit for EQT’s Gas Play
The McElheny Award for Local and Regional Science Journalism will be presented to four members of staff at PublicSource: Quinn Glabicki, Reporter and Photojournalist; Rich Lord, Managing Editor; Natasha Khan Vicens, Creative Director; Halle Stockton, Editor-in-Chief and Co-Executive Director.
Reporting Built on Local Relationships
Community connections enabled the in-depth reporting for this series, “Our connection to the community helps us ask better questions and tell more meaningful stories,” explained Halle Stockton, editor-in-chief and co-executive director of PublicSource. “We don’t drop in — we stay, we listen and we follow through. That’s what allows us to expose patterns, elevate overlooked voices and inform the public in ways that matter.”
The reporting is built on a strong foundation of state and federal records, coupled with records from the impacted families. “I remember driving back from West Virginia with several boxes of journals from Abby Tennant chronicling three years of what the family had been through. To be able to take them home, dissect them and build out a narrative based on what they contained was truly a gift,” Gablicki shared. “The stories in this series were never really mine to tell. The families who let us into their lives made that choice, and the true value of these stories comes from the trust and community connections that led me to them in the first place.” Stockton added, “This project reflected what we value most at PublicSource: time, trust and teamwork. It required building relationships with residents, poring over public records and journal entries, and collaborating across disciplines in the newsroom.”
“This was a doggedly reported, unflinching investigation,” said Ashley Smart, Associate Director of KSJ and McElheny Award judge. “It combined powerful written storytelling with moving photography and illuminating video to tell a story that the reader can’t possibly forget.”
Stockton reflected on her team winning the McElheny Award, “This recognition goes beyond celebrating a solo journalistic project. It’s a testament to what’s possible when local newsrooms are supported to do sustained public-interest reporting. We hope it inspires more investment in local journalism and more trust in the power of truth-telling close to home.”
2025 McElheny Award Finalists
In addition to the winner, the judges selected four finalists for the McElheny Award. They included grant-funded freelancers working with partnering newsrooms, multi-newsroom collaborations spanning multiple time zones, and on-the-ground reporters providing firsthand accounts of how climate change, industrial pollution, and government programs and regulatory loopholes are leaving Americans sick and in danger.
Derek Kravitz, a judge for this year’s award, commented that this group of McElheny Award finalists “included four stellar examples of local science journalism at its best, each one endeavoring to provide answers to their communities’ most troublesome and thorny problems with compelling visuals, first-person testimonials and rigorous data collection and analysis.”
In Texas, journalists interviewed oil and gas workers who were given only six months to live after unknowingly inhaling lethal doses of hydrogen sulfide while working as oil pumpers — and then found tens of thousands of families living right next door to the same hazardous wells.
In the Caribbean, a multi-newsroom collaboration charted the effects of giant masses of floating toxic seaweed called sargassum rotting on island shores, sickening thousands, causing schools and beachfront hotels to close, and making tap water smell like rotten eggs.
In the Northern Hawaiian Islands, an intrepid reporter joined a U.S. government research scientist on a 25-day expedition by boat to a protected national marine monument — a fragile ecosystem subjected to rising seas, stronger storms and possible cutbacks by the Trump administration.
In Baltimore, a team of reporters found that an entire generation of Black men — lonely, out of work after an exodus of manufacturing jobs, with many living in subsidized housing — had fallen prey to drug addiction and, without adequate help by well-funded yet inexperienced companies overseeing drug treatment programs, became the unwitting face and epicenter of the U.S. fentanyl crisis.
2025 Victor K. McElheny Award Honorees, Complete List
Winner
EQT’s Gas Play by Quinn Glabicki, Rich Lord, Natasha Khan Vicens, and Halle Stockton. (PublicSource)
Finalists
Oil companies leak toxic gas across Texas — making local residents sick by Tom Brown, Will Evans, Caroline Ghisolfi, and Amanda Drane. Edited by Raquel Rutledge (Houston Chronicle and The Examination)
After 13 years, no end in sight for Caribbean sargassum invasion by Freeman Rogers, Olivia Losbar, Maria Monica Monsalve, Krista Campbell, Suzanne Carlson, Rafael Rene Diaz, Mariela Mejia, and Hassel Fallas. Edited by Omaya Sosa Pascual. (Centro de Periodismo Investigativo de Puerto Rico, The BVI Beacon, The Virgin Islands Daily News, RCI Guadeloupe, America Futura, El Pais America, Television Jamaica, Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, Diario Libre, La Data Cuenta, and Television Jamaica)
Guardians of the Deep (series) by Nathan Eagle, April Estrellon, and Kawika Lopez. Edited by Amy Pyle (Honolulu Civil Beat)
Baltimore’s Overdose Crisis (series) by Alissa Zhu, Jessica Gallagher, and Nick Thieme. Edited by Richard Martin (The Baltimore Banner)
About the 2025 McElheny Award
Named after the Knight Science Journalism Program’s founding director, the Victor K. McElheny Award was established to honor outstanding coverage of science, public health, technology, and environmental issues at the local and regional levels. The winning team will receive a $10,000 prize. The winners will be honored at a ceremony held in Boston later in 2025.
The Knight Science Journalism Program extends a special thanks to the 2024 McElheny Award judges: Sujata Gupta, Social Sciences Writer, Science News; Dave Harmon, Environment, Energy and Immigration Editor, Texas Tribune; Derek Kravitz, Deputy Editor of Special Projects, Consumer Reports; Czerne Reid, Instructional Associate Professor, University of Florida College of Medicine Affiliate Associate Professor, College of Journalism and Communications; and Ashley Smart, Associate Director, Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT
KSJ also extends warm appreciation to the award’s screeners: Fabiana Cambricoli, Emily Foxhall, Ahmad Gamal Saad-Eddin, Bryce Hoye, Jori Lewis, Yarden Michaeli, Aaron Scott, Evan Urquhart, and Jane Zhang.
The McElheny Award is made possible by generous support from Victor K. McElheny, Ruth McElheny, and the Rita Allen Foundation.
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