Who's behind the news?
Who's behind the news?
1.5.2
Newsjunkie.net is a resource guide for journalists. We show who's behind the news, and provide tools to help navigate the modern business of information.
Use of Data
1.5.2
1.5.2
Across the United States and around the world, a quiet emergency is unfolding in the realm of public knowledge. Datasets disappear from government websites. Research programs are defunded or dismantled. Scientific advisory boards are dissolved. Documents that once formed the backbone of public policy debates—on climate, public health, economics, and the environment—can suddenly become harder to find, altered, or erased.
But something else is happening, too.
Scientists, librarians, archivists, journalists, technologists, and volunteers are organizing to preserve the record. They mirror databases, archive government webpages, file Freedom of Information Act requests, rebuild lost tools, and document policy changes that affect scientific research. Collectively, they form what has come to be known as the data rescue movement.
The Prairie Fire project at Newsjunkie.net exists to support that effort. Prairie Fire serves as a central hub for researchers and citizens who want to protect public knowledge and ensure that critical data remains available for future generations. The site brings together a network of tools, organizations, funding sources, legal resources, monitoring systems, and archives that help people preserve and continue scientific research.
Below is a guide to the seven key Prairie Fire resource centers—and how anyone interested in protecting public data can use them.
The Prairie Fire DIY resource page is the starting point for anyone who wants to move from concern to action.
When public data and research are threatened, people across the scientific and information communities step in to preserve it.
The DIY section gathers practical guides that explain how researchers can document changes to government information systems, archive vulnerable datasets, and continue research independently when institutional support falters.
Several key resources anchor this section.
The Data Rescue Project (DRP) aggregates the work of multiple preservation initiatives working to capture and store federal data before it disappears. Volunteers help archive everything from environmental measurements to health statistics.
The Safeguarding Research and Culture initiative (SRC) provides technical guidance on digital preservation—explaining how to store research data safely and ensure it remains usable over time.
The Union of Concerned Scientists’ Independent Science Initiative offers strategies for scientists navigating politically sensitive research environments. Its toolkit includes guidance on running independent advisory committees and protecting scientific integrity.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) runs a Community-Led FOIA Project, which helps researchers obtain government records that may no longer be publicly accessible.
For researchers worried about legal risks, the Government Accountability Project’s whistleblower guide explains how federal employees can safely report wrongdoing.
Taken together, the DIY section offers something rare: a practical playbook for defending the public record of science.
Data preservation is not only a technical challenge. It is also a legal one.
Scientists and government employees sometimes face retaliation when their work conflicts with political priorities. Research can be suppressed, funding can be cut, and whistleblowers may find themselves navigating complex legal systems.
The Prairie Fire Legal Resources hub connects researchers to organizations that specialize in defending scientific integrity and protecting public employees.
Among them:
The Federal Workers Legal Defense Network provides free legal support and resources for federal workers who have been fired or targeted for political reasons.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) offers pro bono representation for environmental whistleblowers and government scientists.
The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund supports researchers facing harassment or legal intimidation due to their work on climate issues.
These resources ensure that scientists who speak out—or attempt to preserve public knowledge—do not have to do so alone.
Legal protection is a critical part of the data rescue ecosystem. Without it, the risks associated with protecting public information can become overwhelming.
Research requires money. When federal funding becomes unstable or politicized, scientists often turn to alternative sources.
The Prairie Fire Funding Resources page identifies grant programs and philanthropic funding streams that support independent research and public-interest science.
The page highlights major funding organizations such as:
Wellcome, which supports biomedical research worldwide
The American Geophysical Union, which offers grants for Earth and space science
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funds health equity research
The Kettering Family Foundation, which supports initiatives across education, environment, and public health
Researchers can also track grant opportunities through Philanthropy News Digest, which publishes requests for proposals across a wide range of disciplines.
Funding resources are critical to the Prairie Fire mission because they enable scientists to continue research even when federal programs are disrupted.
The preservation of public knowledge depends not only on archiving the past—but on ensuring that new knowledge continues to be created.
One of Prairie Fire’s most powerful tools is its Watch Tower page, which tracks policy changes and administrative actions that affect public data, scientific research, and environmental protection.
Understanding these changes requires constant monitoring. The Watch Tower aggregates dashboards and trackers from leading research institutions and watchdog organizations.
Examples include:
America’s Essential Data, which tracks unusual losses of federal datasets
The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law’s Silencing Science Tracker, which documents interference in government research
Grant Witness, which monitors cancellations of federal research grants
The NRDC White House Watch, which tracks environmental policy changes
Impactcounter.com, which visualizes public health impacts of federal policy decisions
Other trackers monitor changes to immigration policy, environmental justice regulations, and federal oversight systems.
These tools give researchers and journalists the ability to detect early warning signs when data systems are threatened.
Without monitoring systems like these, many policy changes affecting scientific research would go unnoticed.
The Prairie Fire Essential Reading list, curated by data librarian Lynda Kellam, provides the intellectual context for the data rescue movement.
The list includes books, reports, and articles explaining how federal data systems operate—and why they matter.
Among them is “Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms” by Amelia Acker, which explores the history of data storage and how digital archives shape modern knowledge systems.
Reports from the American Statistical Association warn that federal statistical agencies face increasing pressure and resource constraints.
Other studies from the Center for Open Data Enterprise propose strategies for preserving critical national datasets and strengthening the country’s data infrastructure.
These readings underscore a key insight: government data is not merely bureaucratic paperwork. It is the foundation of modern governance.
Economic policy, environmental regulation, public health programs, and scientific research all depend on reliable data.
As one report cited in the Prairie Fire collection notes, the nation’s statistical agencies must continue serving growing demand for “more frequent, timely, and granular information.”
When those systems weaken, society loses its ability to understand itself.
The Prairie Fire Reporting & Communications hub helps journalists cover the evolving story of scientific independence and data preservation.
It gathers research libraries, graphics resources, expert directories, and statistical tools that reporters can use when investigating changes to science policy.
Organizations featured here include:
Climate Central, which produces accessible climate science graphics
The Prison Policy Initiative, which maintains extensive data on the criminal justice system
The American Geophysical Union, which provides expert sources and scientific briefings
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which publishes public health resources
The page also highlights directories such as Former Gov, which connects journalists with former government employees who are willing to speak about their experiences.
These tools make it easier for reporters to explain complex policy changes and scientific developments to the public.
Journalism plays a crucial role in the data rescue movement. When datasets disappear or research programs are dismantled, journalists often provide the first public warning.
Finally, the Prairie Fire Data Safehouses page maps the repositories where rescued data is stored.
When datasets vanish from official government servers, archivists and volunteers frequently recreate them elsewhere.
Among the preservation projects featured here:
The Data Rescue Project portal, which aggregates archived federal datasets from multiple initiatives.
ICPSR’s DataLumos, a crowd-sourced archive of government data that allows researchers to upload and preserve datasets.
Save Our Signs, a photo archive documenting changes to National Park Service signage.
The DEC Document Search, which preserves materials from the USAID Development Experience Clearinghouse.
The page also highlights recreated public tools such as:
Climate Central’s U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database
PEDP’s rebuilt Environmental Justice Screening Tool
The Future Risk Index, a reconstructed FEMA climate tool
Together, these projects form a distributed network of “data safehouses”—places where vulnerable information can survive even if it disappears from official sources.
Each Prairie Fire resource page serves a different function. Together they form an evolving ecosystem that is regularly updated.
Prairie Fire’s goal is simple: to make sure the world’s scientific and public data remain accessible, accountable, and alive. In an era when information can disappear overnight, that mission has never been more important.
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