Our Duty
Public Herald is nonprofit, fearless investigative journalism. Our independence is guaranteed. We’re publicly funded, which means we work for and are supported by public donations. You can’t buy us, and we don’t give credence to awards and ratings. Our Members have carried us here. Join us.
We believe in the vital role the Free Press plays in a democracy and society to protect truth, transparency and accountability. Our investigative journalists tell transformational stories that shift the status quo, and are encouraged to collaborate across platforms with artists and communities.
We’re not afraid of “pissing off the wrong person” and therefore publish whatever, wherever and whenever we want. If you’re a muckraker at heart, or a practicing muckraker or artist, email our executive staff to contribute your work.
Our Founders & History
Co-founded in 2011 by investigative journalists Joshua Pribanic and Melissa Troutman, Public Herald’s mission is two-fold: truth + creativity. Our work uses investigative journalism and art to empower readers and hold accountable those who put the public at risk.
Public Herald has garnered millions of readers, over 2,000 Lifetime Members, published exclusive investigations that reshaped the narrative on fracking, been cited in more than 20 peer-reviewed studies, regularly cited in national coverage, is licensed to more than 100 U.S. colleges, led to probes of criminal conduct, and produced three feature-length documentaries with international distribution.
Our initial focus was to reveal the stories of a ‘silent’ war in the largest natural gas field in the United States – the Marcellus Shale – where victims are buried by regulatory officials, politicians and mainstream media too timid or too indebted to tell the true story about natural gas fracking. Public Herald released the investigative documentary Triple Divide in 2013 and has published dozens of online, multimedia reports about the human and environmental rights abuses from fracking development in Pennsylvania.
Where injustice prevails, there we’ll put our resources. So far, our resource has been you – the public – and we thank you.
Our Inspirations
Public Herald c. 2011
We are inspired by the investigative journalists of the early 20th century — Pulitzer, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Nellie Bly, Ida Tarbell — who revealed massive injustices to millions of Americans. And also by modern-day Muckrakers and Artists across the globe, putting their lives on the line to keep truth alive.
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