Matt Wheeland

How to Leak to Us The Center for Investigative Reporting—home to Mother Jones and Reveal—has a long track record of fairly and responsibly reporting sensitive stories and breaking high-impact news that changes the…

The Center for Investigative Reporting—home to Mother Jones and Reveal—has a long track record of responsibly reporting sensitive stories and breaking high-impact news. We fact-check the hell out of our reporting, and we respect and protect our sources.

Have a tip? Drop us a line, confidentially.

This Federal Food and Agriculture Work Will Cease During the Shutdown What you need to know about who’s still working and which programs will go dark now that the government shutdown has started.

"As the shutdown persists, here’s what we know about the work that will—and won’t—get done at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)." #govtshutdown #agsky

civileats.com/2025/10/01/t...

The opposite of a timeline cleanse, but important and necessary reading:

The EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems The global context has shifted dramatically since publication of the first EAT–Lancet Commission in 2019, with increased geopolitical instability, soaring food prices, and the COVID-19 pandemic exacer...

New #EatLancet report is out! What does it state? I've watched the livestream so you don't have to. Here's a summary of the findings
🍊🥓🍒

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

When Kittens Came to My Prison, I Had Not Petted One in 15 Years I had not touched a cat in 15 years when an orange kitten wandered over to sit with me in the grass.

A lovely timeline cleanse for a Friday morning. Via @kottke.org prisonjournalismproject.org/2024/10/23/c...

How Civil Eats helps reporters and audiences understand federal food policy - Journalism Institute As government cuts and the current shutdown threaten food safety and food access across the country, journalists need timely information about how communities may be affected. To connect federal food…

"We believe everyone who eats should know how policy decisions shape their food options."

Hear from our Operations Director @mattwheeland.bsky.social and Senior Staff Reporter and Contributing Editor @lisaelaineh.bsky.social in a Q&A interview with @npcinstitute.bsky.social. ⬇️

State AGs Defend Trans Americans in Stunning Rebuke to Trump’s FTC — Assigned Eighteen state Attorneys General unite to stand up in defense of trans Americans, in opposition to a Federal Trade Commission investigation into trans healthcare.

On Friday 18 blue state attorneys general BLASTED the Federal Trade Commission, telling it to back off trans youth healthcare and warning of an insidious attempt to reshape the regulation of medicine in the US.

And nobody covered it.

www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

Sign up for our newsletter Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.

New to Floodlight? 👋 We’re an investigative nonprofit newsroom that focuses on climate accountability.

Sign up for our newsletter and join a community of readers who want the inside story on who’s stalling climate action:

Jessica Knurick Is on a Crusade to Correct MAHA Misinformation The researcher has been studying food and chronic disease prevention for years. Now she’s a leading fact-checker in a national conversation.

At @civileats.com, @lisaelaineh.bsky.social is up with a fascinating interview with influencer Jessica Knurick, who recently rose to fame on Instagram with her reels fact-checking MAHA.

civileats.com/2025/09/30/j...

It's easy to see this speech as just weirdly performative, but there's a lot more—and a lot worse—going on here.

The meeting & speeches are part of a larger project aimed at promoting the military leadership’s partisan alignment with the administration.

How? 1/

Civil Eats Is Hiring a Video Reporter Join Civil Eats in telling the stories that shape our food future

Join the Civil Eats team!

We’re looking for a full-time video reporter to produce clear and compelling short-length explainers, features, and interviews as part of our remote newsroom. Check out the job description to find out how to apply. 🎥 🌾⬇️

The Autumn of Our Discontent Thoughts on Political Violence and the Death of American Civil Society Update: Shortly after the publication of this essay, Disney reinstated Jimmy Kimmel (presumably as a result of calculus over the...

Hey folks, since I'm getting my newsletter going on Ghost, I'm getting an order of magnitude fewer page views than I got when I was on Substack.

Could you do me a solid and repost/share my latest post to help me get those numbers back up?

I'd be grateful!

www.bugbeardispatch.com/the-autumn-o...

Courses As part of our mission to help people get informed about critical issues in the food system, Civil Eats has developed an educational curriculum that we’re calling: Crash Courses. These email-based…

What is the role of the federal government when it comes to our food? And what happens when our food system is pressure-tested? Register for our four-part email series, Crash Course, to dive into all of that and more! buff.ly/tZZLiWo

Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love. The reason all of this is happening under the color of law is hyperconsolidation, dissent being traded straight up for merger approval, or fear of harassment.

it looks like the only way to have honest media is directly support them. i currently subscribe to WIRED and rolling stone, and about to subscribe to 404 media. any other WOKE and antifa media orgs i should support?

A Farmworkers Visa Promised Her a Better Life. It Was a Trap. Sofi left behind her child in Mexico for the promise of providing him a better life. She ended up a victim of an operation that is alleged to have exploited the H-2A visa program — and the workers it ...

America's H-2A visa program sounded like a way for Sofi to earn money and support her child in Mexico. Instead, she ended up living a nightmare.

@maxblau.bsky.social and Zaydee Sanchez report, with illustration by Dadu Shin for @propublica.org projects.propublica.org/h2a-visa-far...

Civil Eats Launches a New Crash Course on Civics and the Food System This four-part email course covers the federal government’s role in what we eat, and what's happening as the system is being pressure-tested.

Introducing Crash Course: Civics and the Food System, a four-part series that explores the fundamental importance of the federal government in getting food on tables, and what happens when the system is pressure-tested. buff.ly/3daRzRa

MAHA Report Moves Further Away From Restricting Pesticides The final recommendations from the MAHA Commission align more with the agricultural industry’s goals than the MAHA movement’s asks.

Our first story on today’s MAHA report release, with more to come. @civileats.com civileats.com/2025/09/09/m...

MAHA Report Moves Further Away From Restricting Pesticides The final recommendations from the MAHA Commission align more with the agricultural industry’s goals than the MAHA movement’s asks.

Despite criticisms from Make America Healthy Again supporters who have been calling for action on the use of pesticides linked to health risks, the MAHA Commission’s Strategy Report removed one of the only mentions of “reducing” pesticide use included in an earlier draft.

SHIFT

I am SO EXCITED about this!

Many folks want to take personal action on climate change, but many resources treat people like monoliths.

Enter SHIFT -- a collaboration between Dr. Kim Nicholas and Project Drawdown -- that tailors advice for YOU, using your climate superpowers.

jointheshift.earth

EPA Approves Four New Pesticides That Qualify as PFAS Despite MAHA promises to reduce chemical exposures, experts warn the Trump administration is approving a wave of ‘frightening’ pesticides.

Despite MAHA promises to reduce chemical exposures, experts warn the Trump administration is approving a wave of ‘frightening’ pesticides.

@lisaelaineh.bsky.social reports ⬇️

We can scare him off.

Q: What makes you hard to work for? What are the things that drive your staff crazy about you? A: The same things that make me good at this make me bad at it. I have that psychotic news brain where I'm just like, “We’ve got to get this done in two months or it's over.” We're working on a project that will be out next month that is one of the more ambitious things that we’ve ever done, and I was like, “It’s gotta be done by the end of August.” They should throw stuff at me. They should pick up hammers and throw them at my head.

I talked to Wired for A LONG time about how The Onion works now and also alluded to some very stupid, very fun things coming very soon.

www.wired.com/story/uncann...

Food Deserts - 99% Invisible Woonsocket, Rhode Island was once home to many locally owned and regional grocers. There were small stores such as Fernandes Produce and Big D’s. The city also had supermarkets from classic New Englan...

Discovered this, from @99pi.org, through a recent @civileats.com salon, during which a convo sprang up about what constituted a #FoodSwamp. This, of course, led us to talking about #FoodDeserts, which also brought up an interesting convo about #FoodApartheid. 99percentinvisible.org/episode/634-...

Aug. 28, 1955 | Emmett Till Abducted and Murdered in Mississippi Delta Learn more about our history of racial injustice.

On this day in 1955, two white men abducted and murdered 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi.

'Ice Barbie' Kristi Noem: The Face of Our Slide Into Fascism Kristi Noem’s appearance is designed for reality TV and her aesthetic reflects the brutality of the Trump administration.

NEW TODAY on the Flytrap: Kristi Noem’s appearance is designed for reality TV and her aesthetic reflects the brutality of the Trump administration.

A must-read from @tinavasquez.bsky.social:

Pre-reporting as free labor Hi! My name is Nicole Froio and I am a reporter. I am currently writing about the free labor of pre-reporting that freelance journos do for editors before their stories get picked up. I'm trying to ge...

Hi! I am writing something for The Objective about pre-reporting and how it constitutes a lot of unpaid work for freelance journalists. If you are a freelance journalist, could you please fill out this survey? Trying to see how widespread this is. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Exclusive | The Onion Brought Back Its Print Edition. The Gamble Is Paying Off. Publications turn to the old-style products to appeal to nostalgic readers and stand out in a crowded digital-media landscape.

Some incredibly good news:

One year ago this week, The Onion returned to print.

In that one year, we’ve grown to the 13th largest print newspaper in the United States, just ahead of the Boston Globe, and growing fast.

In short, it’s working.

So… thank you. Thank you for helping save this thing.

The Food That Makes You Gay Too many people grow up fearing what food might reveal about themselves. Maybe it’s time we embrace self-discovery.

Now that it's been a few days, I wanted to share some of my favorite pieces I wrote for Eater over the 6+ years I was there. First off, I got to write a lot about the intersection of food and queerness, culminating in this piece that got me a JBFA nomination www.eater.com/24162871/foo...

How To Fight A Military Occupation Friction. Obstruction. Demoralization.

America is no longer descending into fascism. We are seconds away from impact

Military occupation has come to DC. If and when military occupation comes to where you are, there are things that you can do. This article outlines some of them