Documenters in Calcasieu Parish publish meeting notes and information on budgets and public records relevant to disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. We summarize the week’s notes in our newsletter, and share them on our website and social media.

Lake Charles and Calcasieu Parish have been hit hard by disasters the last several years—the pandemic, hurricanes, tornadoes, a deep freeze, historic flooding. These have exacerbated food insecurity and the housing crisis, and many residents are left wondering where relief money is being spent.

From September 2022 to February 2023, Southerly ran a pilot project tracking, documenting, and reporting on disaster prep, response, and recovery by attending public meetings, following city and parish budgets, and examining public records. We’re working with and learning from Documenters, a national network of newsrooms and community organizations committed to participatory civic media that started out of City Bureau in Chicago.

This work is now continuing under local ownership and leadership. It is a case study that can hopefully be replicated throughout the South and U.S. in how we hold power accountable and show up for our communities before, during, and long after a storm hits or emergency happens.

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Our team

Tasha Guidry, Owner/Manager

Natalie McLendon, Documenter

Carl M. Ambrose, Jr., Documenter

Tracy Antoine, Documenter

Editorial Independence

SWLA Journal is an LLC. We retain full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions. 

Ethics

We abide by the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. View the SPJ Code of Ethics here.

We may publish rigorously verified information provided to us by confidential sources whose identities are known to us.

We clearly disclose any potential conflicts of interest.

We promptly address errors in our reporting and issue clear corrections.

Financial Transparency

SWLA Journal accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support. We do not accept funding from sources that present a conflict of interest. We do not accept funding from sources who may compromise our independence.

We may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content. 

We will accept anonymous donations for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization.

We are committed to transparency in every aspect of funding our organization. We make public all donors who give $1,000 or more per year. We will not accept donations from sources who present a conflict of interest or compromise our independence.

We will make public all donors who give a total of $1,000 or more per year. Those donors are listed below. Thank you to all our donors for supporting our work.

Donors

$25,000

Alliance for Affordable Energy