The Real News Network (TRNN) is honored to be one of the 2025 recipients of the Izzy Award, recognizing “outstanding achievement[s] in independent journalism/independent media,” for our on-the-ground documentary report, “Trainwreck in ‘Trump Country’: Partisan politics hasn’t helped East Palestine, OH,” directed by Mike Balonek. On behalf of TRNN and our entire team of grassroots journalists and movement media makers, I am beyond grateful and humbled to accept this prestigious award. I am equally honored to share this award with journalist Steve Mellon of Pittsburgh Union Progress, who co-hosted the report with me, and who has done more in-depth, consistent, and humane coverage of the East Palestine train derailment and chemical disaster than anyone else in the country—all while he and his colleagues have been on strike at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since October 2022. TRNN continues to stand in full solidarity with our striking colleagues, we condemn the illegal strike-breaking and union-busting actions of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s owners, and we call on our fellow media organizations to do the same.
I am admittedly apprehensive about accepting an award for our coverage on this catastrophic and preventable tragedy when people living in and around East Palestine have had their lives upended and are still going through hell. Chris Albright, the resident who spoke to me and Steve Mellon in this documentary report while we sat in his dining room, was just hospitalized again and spent the past weekend in critical care due to heart-related issues caused by the derailment. Some people we spoke to while filming in East Palestine last year have since had to move and leave everything behind to save their and their family’s health, becoming refugees from their own hometowns.
“Nothing has changed,” Ashley McCollom, a displaced East Palestine resident, told me in February. “It feels like the town is basically the same, the reactions, the uncomfortable feeling, the stress… you can clearly smell something’s not right.” I would like to take the opportunity of this award announcement to reiterate the same plea I’ve been making for two years: Please don’t forget about East Palestine. Don’t look away, don’t give up on these people, as so many politicians, pundits, and unaffected members of the public have. They are working people just like you and me, they are our neighbors, and they desperately need help. Please, I beg you, help them.
None of these residents did anything to deserve this nightmare, they did not cause it, yet they are the ones paying the unimaginable price for the corporate greed and government negligence that did. And it’s not just the chemically poisoned residents living in and around East Palestine. As we have shown in our extensive, ongoing coverage of and interviews with working-class residents living, working, and fighting for justice in America’s “sacrifice zones”—from communities throughout South Baltimore that have been poisoned for generations by rail giant CSX Transportation and dozens of other toxic polluters concentrated in their part of the city, to residents in Western North Carolina, whose lives and towns were devastated by Hurricane Helene, to residents living near Conyers, GA, who have been affected by the nightmare-inducing chemical fire at the BioLab facility in September, to so many other communities—this life-destroying scourge is coming for all of us. And it’s going to need to be us, the ones in the path of all this reckless and preventable destruction—working people, fighting as one—who are going to stop them.
We at TRNN accept this award proudly as recognition of our dedication to the people of East Palestine, to our neighbors and fellow workers at the center of these all-too-frequent national tragedies, and to the work of lifting up their voices and reporting on their stories truthfully, transparently, and fearlessly. But these stories are not over, and the work is not done until people get justice, until the corporate monsters, corporate politicians, and Wall Street vampires poisoning our communities are stopped and held accountable for their crimes. And you have a role to play in shaping that outcome—we all do. What happens next depends on what you and others do about it, how you turn the information and perspectives we provide through our journalism, and the connections we facilitate on our platforms, into action.
That is our team’s stubbornly held belief and the shared mission we embody in all the work we do, from our on-the-ground documentary reporting around the world to the investigative, grassroots journalism and human-centered storytelling we produce regularly on Police Accountability Report, The Marc Steiner Show, Rattling the Bars, Inequality Watch, Working People, Edge of Sports TV, Solidarity Without Exception, Stories of Resistance, and more. We don’t give up on people when the news cycle has moved on, we don’t abandon critical stories just to chase clicks; we keep coming back, we keep listening, we keep reporting, we keep connecting people we meet through that reporting, and we keep doing everything we can to make media that empowers others to be and make the change they’re waiting for. Moreover, rather than see one another as competitors, we commit to collaborating with similarly mission-driven outlets—from Pittsburgh Union Progress to our partners in the Movement Media Alliance, of which TRNN is a founding member—to carry out our mission in the most impactful ways and to better serve and empower the public.
At TRNN, we don’t just tell you about what’s happening in the world and expect you to simply react to it; we take you to the heart of the action where people are making change happen, and we encourage you to do something with it. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. TRNN is journalism and human-centered storytelling for people who are doing something and for people who want to do something but don’t know where to start. It starts here, now, with you, with us. We are working to change the world, and that work is gruelling, expensive, and time-consuming, and we cannot do it without you.
If you appreciate our award-winning journalism, then please become a supporter today.
Thank you to the Park Center for Independent Media and to the award committee for honoring us with this Izzy Award. Thank you to all of our supporters who make our work possible, and thank you to everyone fighting wherever you are to make change and justice inevitable. Lastly, thank you to the people of East Palestine for opening your hearts and homes to us, and for trusting us to share your stories with the world—we won’t stop, and we won’t forget about you.
For more information about how you can help the residents of East Palestine, OH, email us at contact@therealnews.com.
Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever,
Maximillian Alvarez
Editor-in-Chief & Co-Executive Director, TRNN
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Maximillian Alvarez.