OUR TEAM
MARIO ARIZA
Investigative Reporter
Mario Alejandro Ariza is an investigative reporter and a Dominican immigrant.
His byline has appeared in publications like the South Florida Sun Sentinel, The New Republic, and The Atlantic.
Mario wrote a book called Disposable City: Miami’s Future on the Shores of Climate Catastrophe, which was published by Bold Type Books. His essays have been featured in The Believer and selected for Best American Essays. He lives in South Florida with two cats, a dog, and a sturdy pair of waterproof boots.
mario@floodlightnews.org
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JOHN DINEEN
Editor-in-Chief
John Dineen is based in Washington, D.C. He was formerly Chief Product Officer and Senior Vice President at CQ Roll Call.
Early in his career, Dineen ran two local newspapers and served as a congressional chief-of-staff, before directing an environmental information service for members of Congress. After that, he became a policy news consultant and then launched two congressionally-focused publications, on trade and competitiveness, and the environment.
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MIRANDA GREEN
Director of Investigations
Miranda Green oversees the national investigations team at Floodlight, where she edits and reports on stories with national significance. Before joining Floodlight, she covered California and the West, where she's based in Los Angeles. She was a frequent contributor to the New York Times, New York Magazine and The Washington Post.
Previously, she spent seven years reporting in Washington, D.C., covering the environment, climate change and politics as a staff reporter for CNN, The Hill, The Daily Beast and Scripps News
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EMILY HOLDEN
Founder and Executive Director
Emily is an investigative environmental journalist with more than a decade of reporting experience in Washington, D.C. She is a winner of the 2022 SEAL Environmental Journalism Award.
Before founding Floodlight in early 2021, she was an environment correspondent for the Guardian. She has written for Politico, E&E News and CQ Roll Call. Her work has also been published in The Arizona Republic, the Baton Rouge Advocate, the Houston Chronicle and Gannett newspapers.
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Emily covered the White House, federal agencies, Congress, the courts, and electricity regulation, through the Obama and Trump administrations. She grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
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TERRY JONES
Louisiana Enterprise Reporter
Terry is a Baton Rouge native and has lived and worked there for the last decade. Before joining Floodlight, he was the City Hall reporter for The Advocate. He has covered crime, local politics and environmental issues in the Louisiana capital and the surrounding area.
Terry is a graduate of Southern University. In 2020, he was awarded a reporting fellowship from Investigative Reporters and Editors and uncovered how the East Baton Rouge Parish Office of Community Development mismanaged federal money meant for affordable housing. Jones also moonlights as a writer of young adult fiction.
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LEE PEDINOFF
Director of Development & Operations
Lee supports the Floodlight team behind-the-scenes, leading fundraising efforts and building systems to help the newsroom perform at its best. Lee has a background in project management at early-stage (and growing) organizations, having recently served as the Director of Development & Operations at civic startup Arena. After helping build Arena, Lee invested in mission-driven startup founders, social entrepreneurs, and civic leaders at Incite.org, the family office of Swati Mylavarapu & Matt Rogers.
Lee began his career in public education, serving as a Founding Teacher at RePublic Schools and Teach for America Corps Member in Nashville, TN.
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PAM RADTKE
Gulf Coast Managing Editor
Pam is editor of Floodlight's Gulf Coast team, which spans Louisiana and Texas. Based in New Orleans, Pam is a veteran editor and reporter, focused on energy, environment and climate change. She was part of The New Orleans Times-Picayune team that published after Hurricane Katrina — efforts for which it was awarded two Pulitzer prizes — and covered the storm’s aftermath on the state’s oil and gas industry and electric utilities.
Pam served as an energy and environment editor at CQ Roll Call, and as a correspondent for Platts, where her work spanned from utility regulation to the BP oil spill. Most recently she was a deputy editor at Engineering News-Record, where she led and wrote multiple award-winning climate-related packages. Pam’s reporting has also appeared in HuffPost and the Guardian.
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KRISTI SWARTZ
Southeast Investigative Reporter
Kristi is a veteran business reporter with years of experience covering the electricity industry. Before joining Floodlight, she spent eight years covering energy policy in the Southeast for E&E News’ Energywire.
Swartz previously wrote about Southern Co., among other topics, for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and covered NextEra and Florida’s energy economy at the Palm Beach Post. While at the Post, she received a Sunshine State News Award for deadline business reporting as well as a first-place Sunshine State award for non-deadline business reporting. She also worked at newspapers in North Carolina. Swartz is a native Marylander. She now lives in Atlanta.
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OUR BOARD
JESSE BRAGG
Jesse Bragg is a program director at the Sequoia Climate Foundation, where he leads the organization’s work on strategic communications and engagement. Prior to joining Sequoia, Jesse was the media director at Corporate Accountability, a corporate watchdog and human rights organization, where he oversaw media communications across five areas—climate, food, tobacco, water, and democracy. Jesse has also worked in various communications, director, and political roles for state elected officials, a governor, and U.S. Representatives and Senators across the northeastern United States, including as executive director of a state political party. Jesse resides in southern California with his partner, Audrey, and their two children.
ELLEN WEISS
Ellen Weiss is an award-winning journalist and leader with more than 40 years experience working in audio, video and digital newsrooms. Most recently, as Washington Bureau Chief and Vice President at The E. W. Scripps Company, she created a multimedia national investigative team and launched podcasting for the company. While there, she received her forth Peabody Award for the “Under the Radar” investigative series and the RFK’s Journalism Grand Prize for the investigative documentary “A Broken Trust,” a project highlighting the lack of justice for survivors of sexual assault on tribal lands.
Prior to that she spent nearly 30 years at NPR and served as Senior Vice President of News. In that role, she oversaw global expansion of NPR News, the creation of award-winning programs, an investigative unit, podcasts and the digital integration of the newsroom.
Weiss is a graduate of Smith College with a B.A. in international relations. She and her family live in Washington, D.C.
ANDRÉS JIMENEZ
Andrés is executive director of Green 2.0, an organization aimed at increasing the representation of people of color within environmental organizations. Andrés previously served as Senior Director of Government Affairs at Citizens' Climate Lobby and the Associate Director of Government Relations at Ocean Conservancy. He has worked for New York City's mayor's office, the House Judiciary's Immigration Subcommittee, Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, and Congressman Howard Berman. Andrés was appointed as Planning Commissioner for Fairfax, Virginia in 2020.
OUR STANDARDS
A bit about how we are funded and how we maintain editorial independence:
Floodlight is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit newsroom supported by philanthropic grants from foundations and gifts from individuals.
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Floodlight is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News and subscribes to its standards of editorial independence. We retain full authority over editorial content:
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Our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.
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We do not accept charitable donations sources who present a conflict of interest with our work or compromise our independence.
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Floodlight may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage.
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Floodlight will make public all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year.
OUR DONORS
2030 Fund
Armature Philanthropy at Foundation for Louisiana
Climate Cousins Foundation
Donor advised funds at:
Fidelity Charitable
Maine Community Foundation
Energy Foundation
Equation Campaign
Heising-Simons Foundation
Incite.org
John & Marcia Goldman Foundation
Matt Rogers and Swati Mylavarapu
Porticus
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Sequoia Climate Foundation
Society of Environmental Journalists
Sonjia Smith
The Sunrise Project
Tides Foundation
The Wilderness Society