{{nofootnotes, date=March 2011
The Public Education Center (PEC) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit
investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years res ...
organization based in
Washington, DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
. Through its National Security News Service (NSNS) and Natural Resources News Service (NRNS), PEC employs career investigative journalists to develop nationally significant, general-interest news stories that would otherwise be ignored by the mainstream media and places them in targeted commercial media.
NSNS covers topics such as
weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natu ...
, nuclear issues, conventional arms, the
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...
community,
terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
, and
government waste
Government failure, in the context of public economics, is an economic inefficiency caused by a government intervention, if the inefficiency would not exist in a true free market. The costs of the government intervention are greater than the ben ...
, fraud, and secrecy. NRNS focuses on such topics as air and water
pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...
,
habitat protection
Habitat conservation is a management practice that seeks to conserve, protect and restore habitats and prevent species extinction, fragmentation or reduction in range. It is a priority of many groups that cannot be easily characterized in term ...
and reclamation, public
land management
Land management is the process of management, managing the land use, use and land development, development (in both Urban planning, urban and rural settings, but it is mostly managed in Urban places.) of Land (economics), land resources. Land reso ...
, and environmental regulation.
Reporters for PEC develop these investigative stories by locating and interviewing sources and finding relevant scientific and government information, often utilizing the federal
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request:
* Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act
* ...
. The organization then offers the work to the commercial media, who utilize PEC’s contacts and extensive background research to write and produce the final stories themselves.
History
The Public Education Center was established in 1992 to finance and administer NSNS, which was founded by Wayne Jaquith in 1988 as a pilot project of the
Council for a Livable World
Council for a Livable World is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to eliminating the U.S. arsenal of nuclear weapons. Its stated aim is for "progressive national security policies and helping elect congressional c ...
’s Education Fund.
Administration
Joseph Trento is president of the Public Education Center.