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Letter from the Editor Dear Reader, An old adage in our business is that “the job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
That saying has proven to more than just hold up over time. In MLive’s latest piece of investigative journalism, Lori Chapman proves it transcends the newspaper format.
Chapman, a video producer at MLive, is the creative force behind a documentary we released this week: “The Fight for Environmental Justice in Michigan.” The 10-minute video tells a powerful story of how marginalized communities are saddled with some of the worst environmental circumstances in Michigan.
Foul air, foul water, smokestacks near playgrounds and highways running through their front yards – and with very little leverage to effect change.
“I want to upset people in the right way; I want to inspire people,” said Chapman. “This is definitely not like anything I've ever done before, so I didn’t want to get it wrong.”
That’s saying a lot for Chapman, who spent nine years at CNN as a video producer before coming to MLive six years ago. In her tenure here, she has written scripts, conducted interviews, produced, and edited videos that have won nine Michigan Emmy awards in the past two years alone.
Some of that work, like our “Michigan’s Best Day” travel features, is lighter fare that highlights fun destinations and the natural beauty our state has to offer.
But many of the honors were for deeper dives into important issues such as PFAS “forever chemical” pollution, the decline of our middle class, and drowning hazards on Lake Michigan.
“The Fight for Environmental Justice in Michigan” is in the vein of those weighty, complex issue stories. Before things can change, people have to care enough to act. In order to care, they have to understand.
Video holds a unique power to make human stories come alive. Not just through images and scenes that place you in the middle of the story, but through the unflinching gaze and emotional words of the people whose lives are being damaged.
“I had an outline of what I wanted to say, but I let the interviews drive the story,” Chapman said. “This is a little bit different than the other documentaries we've done because there is no narrator, there's no on-camera host. I really wanted to let these voices tell their own story.”
You’ll hear from social activists and public health experts in the documentary, who explain how emissions can shorten life spans. You’ll get a history lesson, on how “red-lining” put those industries there in the first place, in what were already established neighborhoods. But most impactfully, you’ll hear people who live in the shadows of refineries, mills and expressways tell you that some days, it hurts to breathe.
“It's not that they're forced to live there,” Chapman says of the residents. “Sometimes, they were there first.”
When people think of 21st century public health disasters, they inevitably think of the Flint Water Crisis. That ongoing disaster not only is mentioned in “The Fight for Environmental Justice in Michigan,” one of the more colorful characters to emerge from it served as an inspiration for Chapman.
“I saw a tweet from Little Miss Flint that mentioned ‘environmental justice,’” she said. “That actually was the first time I really thought of that as a phrase. You know, it's separate from social justice, and it’s separate from environmentalism.”
Chapman began researching the movement, and found it has its roots in the civil rights movement. One of the earliest examples of that activism is briefly shown in the video – a protest in 1982, in which protesters blocked a road in North Carolina to stop dumping of hazardous waste in their neighborhoods.
Sometimes that waste doesn’t have to be in our own backyard to make us aware. In short, we’re all a bit more afflicted, and a bit more uncomfortable. And perhaps ready to heed warnings like the latest work from Chapman and MLive’s videographers.
To see MLive’s other Emmy-winning documentaries, click here. ###
Editor's note: I value your feedback to my columns, story tips and your suggestions on how to improve our coverage. Let me know how MLive helps you, and how we can do better. Please feel free to reach out by emailing me at [email protected].
John Hiner Executive Editor Vice President of Content Mlive Media Group
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