Knight Center alum (2012) Brian Bienkowski recently received professional recognition as part of a team receiving honorable mention from judges of the John B. Oakes Award.
The national award recognizes excellence in environmental reporting.
Bienkowski is a senior editor and writer for Environmental Health News, a national nonprofit news service that dispatched reporters to seven cities to profile the environmental health threats facing low-income communities of color. As part of that effort he wrote about a Native American tribe in Michigan, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, that is battling a new mine, which poses a threat to the water that the tribe considers sacred.
“Native Americans are even more vulnerable than other disadvantaged groups because of their reliance on natural resources for survival,” he wrote.
Bienkowski’s job before his Environmental Health News gig was as a reporter for the Knight Center’s Great Lakes Echo news service while a masters student here.
Echo ran this story as part of a cooperative agreement with Environmental Health News. Echo seeks to distribute fine Great Lakes environmental journalism produced by alums, other professionals and, of course, our students.
More here.