Jenese Harris
Jenese Harris focuses on how rules, infrastructure and the physical environment intersect with people’s lives, treating environmental stories as part of a broader accountability beat at News4JAX. She is an anchor, reporter and meteorologist, and her reporting often follows the chain from individual complaint to regulatory action, showing who is responsible and what remedies exist when systems fail. Recent coverage spans nuisance liens for illegal dumping, utility control of water and sewer service, unsafe motels, stadium land deals, violent crime and civil rights commemorations, giving her environmental reporting a strong grounding in housing, public safety and local governance.
Land owners fined thousands for trash dumped on their property
In “Land owners fined thousands for trash dumped on their property,” Harris uses an illegal dumping case to show how environmental enforcement and city code can burden residents who are not the source of the problem. She follows two brothers who own multiple lots on Melba Street and are fined under a nuisance lien after a neighbor repeatedly dumps trash onto their investment property, tracing the timeline from complaints to citation. The story quantifies the impact, citing a lien of $7,909.64 and a 15-day cleanup deadline, and details how the city proceeded even after the owners insisted they were not responsible for the debris.
Her reporting brings in the district’s city council member and a civil attorney to clarify what recourse property owners have when enforcement targets them rather than the actual dumper.
She includes practical options such as filing a lawsuit against the person dumping and providing information to law enforcement so a criminal investigation can be opened, translating legal language into clear steps. By combining resident testimony, city records and legal guidance, she frames the environmental issue as both a neighborhood blight and a fairness problem in municipal enforcement.
This approach recurs in other coverage where land use and public entities collide, such as the city’s pursuit of fair market payment after the Jacksonville Armada stadium deadline passes, and utility decisions around land and infrastructure. Across these stories, she foregrounds ordinary owners and tenants, then moves outward to the policies and contracts that shape their environment.
Baymeadows motel residents forced to move out of unsafe building
In “Baymeadows motel residents forced to move out of unsafe building,” Harris focuses on housing conditions as an environmental and safety issue, documenting how structural problems displace low-income residents. The story reports on Building No. 1 of America’s Best Inn, where inspectors found damage to a second-floor landing and cracks in concrete flooring, triggering orders that forced dozens of people to move.
She uses these specific findings to show that the environment inside aging buildings can be as hazardous as visible neighborhood blight.
Her coverage connects inspection reports to lived experience, following residents as they react to being told to vacate and navigate limited options.
The frame is consistent with her broader focus on unsafe properties, nuisance locations and code enforcement, including coverage of motels described by neighbors and officials as breeding grounds for crime and stories about apartment complexes facing lawsuits over conditions. By treating building integrity and interior hazards as part of the environmental beat, she extends environmental reporting beyond pollution or weather into the built spaces people occupy every day.
Harris often places these housing stories alongside pieces on utility service and neighborhood infrastructure, such as coverage of a utility taking over water and sewer service in Normandy Village. That pattern shows a sustained interest in how technical decisions, inspections and ownership changes alter the security and stability of the places where people live and work.
Two children caught in crossfire of road rage shooting
Her reporting on “Two children caught in crossfire of road rage shooting” illustrates how she handles violent crime and public safety, again with attention to setting and consequence. The story details how two men are accused of shooting at each other’s cars during a road rage encounter, with a child in each vehicle struck in the crossfire.
Harris follows the arrests and charges while keeping focus on the children, making the roadway and traffic environment central to understanding how everyday spaces become dangerous.
Similar work appears in coverage of social media threats made by two baseball players against an African American teammate and road rage shootings that pull in bystanders. She tracks police actions, court proceedings and community responses, showing how legal systems respond when physical spaces - roads, schools, motels - turn into crime scenes. Her environmental beat intersects here with public safety, because the stories highlight how design, traffic, and enforcement interact with human behavior to produce risk.
Across these crime pieces, Harris maintains a straightforward tone and leans heavily on documented facts: arrest records, charging documents, sentencing outcomes and official statements. The emphasis on documentation aligns with her long-running coverage of high-profile court cases, including the Ahmaud Arbery murder investigation and trial, where she followed proceedings over multiple years. That experience in court reporting strengthens her ability to situate individual incidents within larger patterns of violence, justice and community trust.
66 years after Ax Handle Saturday, Civil Rights Trail marker unveiled in downtown Jacksonville
In “66 years after Ax Handle Saturday, Civil Rights Trail marker unveiled in downtown Jacksonville,” Harris turns to historic memory and public space, covering the installation of a Civil Rights Trail marker decades after a notorious attack on peaceful demonstrators. The story documents the unveiling and ties the marker to a broader recognition of past racial violence, placing a physical object in a downtown environment as a focal point for civic reflection. Her author description alongside the piece highlights her role as a veteran journalist and Emmy Award–winning anchor, underscoring that these commemorative stories sit within a wider portfolio of serious reporting.
Her civil rights and historical coverage connects to courtroom work, such as reporting on the testimony of an ex-mistress in the trial of a former sheriff accused of ordering an illegal arrest and sentencing in a child murder case. In these pieces, she consistently emphasizes procedural detail - who testifies, what charges are at issue, how long cases have unfolded - rather than commentary. The link between historic civil rights events and contemporary justice system stories gives her beat a sense of continuity across decades.
Harris also covers community figures and institutions in lighter but still grounded pieces, including a first responder reflecting on 9/11, high school student-athletes recognized by a professional football team, and a teacher whose percussion covers draw millions of views online. These stories locate individuals within schools, workplaces and public ceremonies, keeping the setting integral even when the subject matter shifts from enforcement to celebration. Awards such as a Gracie for on-air talent and multiple Emmys reflect how her newsroom sees this blend of hard news, environmental accountability and community storytelling as a coherent body of work.
4 more environment journalists.
Alan Halaly
Alan Halaly is a water reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal who treats the Colorado River as a working system, not a backdrop, making its governance, infrastructure and risks central to his beat. He covers how policy decisions and infrastructure projects shape the region’s water future, linking high-level choices on the Colorado River, dams, mining and data centers to everyday consequences under mounting heat and growth pressures. He reports deeply on new laws, lawsuits and regulatory shifts, focusing on on-the-ground impacts. His coverage spans Colorado River cuts, Hoover Dam operations, extreme weather, heat and parks, septic system rules, workplace and public health risks, lithium and gold mines, protected landscapes, data centers, AI infrastructure and public funding. Previously he reported for metropolitan dailies, digital outlets and public media, including the Miami Herald, WUFT, The Daily Beast and Miami New Times, with work recognized by Hearst, ONA and the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Alejandra Borunda
Alejandra Borunda reports on how climate change affects human health for NPR. Her work treats global warming as a direct cause of physical and mental health risks. She covers extreme heat, including undercounted deaths, lost sleep and local efforts to track heat-related fatalities. She also reports on wildfire smoke, hurricanes, disease spread such as dengue fever, trauma, stress and unequal health impacts. Her stories examine how communities protect themselves and recover, as well as practical solutions involving climate-resilient crops, agriculture and diet. Before NPR, she wrote about climate science and environmental issues for National Geographic, including glacier retreat, shade and heat inequity, and shrinking ice-fishing seasons. A former climate scientist, she combines field reporting with scientific data to connect atmospheric research to everyday risks, choices and people’s lived experiences.
Alex Lubben
Alex Lubben is an environment reporter at The Times-Picayune/The Advocate who connects climate risk to policy, industry and community change. He covers Gulf warming, flood protection, coastal restoration, wetlands litigation, industrial projects such as SpaceX’s possible expansion, invasive species and local ecosystems. His reporting tracks how law, politics and corporate decisions shape levees, drainage, marshes and long-term resilience. He also examines climate relocation, housing and labor, showing how hurricanes, floods and wildfires displace vulnerable communities and expose gaps in government systems. He works on a small environment team and brings an investigative background to document work, data analysis, legal and policy research, and field reporting. His work has appeared in VICE News, The Center for Public Integrity, The Nation, Jewish Currents and NBC News.
Alex Wigglesworth
Alex Wigglesworth reports on how climate, land use and public policy shape California communities. She covers the Inland Empire and Mojave Desert for the Los Angeles Times and is part of its environment team. Her beat includes wildfires, megadrought, extreme weather, desert development, conservation, wildlife, industrial hazards, aging infrastructure and regulatory enforcement. She has covered Western Joshua trees, desert tortoises, beaver-led restoration, toxic lead pipes, air-quality concerns after industrial fires and the effects of nuclear war on food systems. Earlier, she was a general assignment reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com. She combines breaking news with detailed reporting grounded in scientific studies, modeling and expert interviews. Her work connects fires, drought and other hazards to climate change, while examining how agencies, companies and land-use decisions affect people and ecosystems.