Environmental journalism students wilderness camping
Report on melting glaciers in India or the shrinking rainforests of Nicaragua. Start your own news community as a student and continue to nurture it long after you graduate.
Learn to report on the quality of an unstudied river by launching your own scientific investigation. Help award-winning faculty produce a documentary on urban farming. Launch an indepth multi-media story or experiment with creative audience engagement techniques. Cover breaking environmental news or produce a long form magazine piece.
Produce news stories for the Knight Center’s Great Lakes Echo to gain the clips and experience allowing you to work at one of the nation’s top online environmental news services upon graduation.
These are the kinds of hands-on activities that students have already experienced at Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism where classes are taught by instructors with significant professional experience covering the environment.
Students examine macroinvertebrates to determine quality of Red Cedar River.
Graduates have gone on to jobs at some of the most competitive media outlets, including National Geographic Magazine, the New York Times, Envrionmental Health News, Greenwire, Associated Press, CNN. Others have put their communication skills to work at government agencies and non-profit environmental organizations.
“I packed in a lot of hands-on experience so that I could get a job soon after graduation,” said 2009 graduate Anisa Abid, now a production coordinator at National Geographic Television. “A summer study abroad in Madagascar turned into a master’s project and my first documentary, and my internship at National Geographic Television enabled me to land a job there.”
Students analyze how much of Spartan Stadium trash is recyclable.
Notes Hannah Northey, now covering energy for Greenwire in Washington D.C., “The Knight Center gave me the experience and skills needed to succeed in environmental journalism, a field growing in importance in every facet of our society.”
Aileo Weinmann, now a communications manager for the National Wildlife Federation in Washington D.C., agrees: “This is where to get the experience that leads to rewarding careers — the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism and MSU were my roadmap to the jobs I wanted.”