Ken Ward Jr. is a co-founder of Mountain State Spotlight and former staff reporter for the ''

Charleston Gazette-Mail The ''Charleston Gazette-Mail'' is a non-daily morning newspaper in Charleston, West Virginia. It is the product of a July 2015 merger between ''The Charleston Gazette'' and the '' Charleston Daily Mail''. It is one of nine papers owned by HD M ...

'' and writes about the

coal mining industry Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is a type of fossi ...

and its impacts on Appalachian communities. He is chairman of the

Society of Environmental Journalists The Society of Environmental Journalists is a non-profit national journalism organization created by and for journalists who report environmental topics in the news media. On its website, the organization says that "SEJ’s mission is to strengt ...

First Amendment Task Force, founded in 2002 "to address freedom-of-information, right-to-know, and other news gathering issues of concern to the pursuit of environmental journalism." He announced on Monday, February 24, that this would be his last day.

Personal

Ward is a native of

Mineral County, West Virginia Mineral County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is part of the Cumberland metropolitan area, together with Cumberland, Maryland. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 26,9 ...

. He obtained his degree from

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...

Career

He began working at the ''Charleston Gazette'' in 1991. His work has focused on mine safety,

mountaintop removal Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. T ...

, environmental and labor issues. He has covered the

Sago Sago () is a starch extracted from the pith, or spongy core tissue, of various tropical palm stems, especially those of ''Metroxylon sagu''. It is a major staple food for the lowland peoples of New Guinea and the Maluku Islands, where it is c ...

and the

Upper Big Branch Mine disaster The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010, roughly underground in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. 29 out of 31 at the site were killed. The coal dust explosion ...

s that killed 29 West Virginia coal miners.

Honors and awards

Ward won an

Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship The Alicia Patterson Foundation (APF) program was established in 1965 in memory of Alicia Patterson, who was the editor and publisher of ''Newsday'' for nearly 23 years before her death in 1963. Fellowship The Foundation provides competitive, one- ...

in 2006 to research and write about mining deaths in the coal industry. He is also a three-time winner of the

Scripps Howard Foundation The Scripps Howard Fund is a public charity that supports philanthropic causes important to the E. W. Scripps Company, an American media conglomerate which owns television stations, cable television networks, and other media outlets. The Fund's m ...

Edward J. Meeman Award The Scripps Howard Awards, formerly the National Journalism Awards, are $10,000 awards in American journalism given by the Scripps Howard Foundation. Awardees receive "cash prizes, citations and plaques." As of 2023, the categories are: * Exce ...

for his environmental reporting and won the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in 2000. His work and research on coal mine issues as an Alicia Patterson Fellow earned him an Investigative Reporters and Editors medal. In October 2018, Ward was named a

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and 30 individuals workin ...

(popularly known as "Genius Grants") by the

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 117 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.6 billion and ...

. Ward is the first MacArthur Fellow to be living in West Virginia at the time of their award; the three previous recipients from West Virginia had moved away.

References

External links

Column Archives
at ''

''
Column Archives
at

ProPublica ProPublica (), legally Pro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in New York City. ProPublica's investigations are conducted by its staff of full-time reporters, and the resulting stories are distributed to ne ...

* Living people People from Mineral County, West Virginia West Virginia University alumni American male journalists MacArthur Fellows Year of birth missing (living people) Livingston Award winners for National Reporting {{US-journalist-20thC-stub

Personal

Career

Honors and awards

See also

References

External links