Author Archives: Barb Miller

Environmental journalism student reflects on public radio internship

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By Taylor Haelterman

Taylor Haelterman

This summer I had the opportunity to work at WKAR Radio, a National Public Radio affiliate, as an environmental reporting intern.  In this position, I was able to create spots, super-spots and features that aired on “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” with written accompaniments published online.

Two of the pieces I’m most proud of are “Parks And Recreation Interest Spikes As Michigan Reopens” and “MSU Study Finds No-Till Farming Yields Long-Term Economic Benefits.”

The parks and recreation story holds a special place in my heart because it’s the first piece I ever produced for a radio station outside of Michigan State University’s student station. And the story on no-till farming makes this list because it was the story that made me realize how far my reporting skills had developed in only a couple of months. Continue reading →

Knight Center alum accepts position at Alma College

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Tony Van Witsen

Former Knight Center doctoral researcher Tony Van Witsen will begin teaching next week as a full time visiting faculty member at Alma College, a small liberal arts school in Alma, Michigan. He will be teaching two undergraduate courses, Research Methods and Relational Communication, which will mostly encompass the relationship between science and policy. Tony entered the I & M program in August of 2014 and successfully defended his dissertation this past May. His research examines news coverage of environmental controversies and complex scientific issues, particularly the ways journalists make sense of statistics.

Knight Center’s Ph.D. researcher wins paper awards at 2020 AEJMC Conference

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Leigh Anne Tiffany

Knight Center researcher, Leigh Anne Tiffany, received two paper awards at the 2020 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference this August.

Tiffany, a second-year Ph.D. student in Michigan State University’s Information and Media program, received the Top Theory Paper Award and second-place Top Student Paper Award from the Communication Theory and Methodology Division.

Her award-winning paper, titled “The Journalism-Public Relations Role Continuum,” proposes three new theoretical models for addressing the relationship between journalists and public relations practitioners, specifically how to delineate these closely connected professions. The desired outcome of this theoretical paper is to increase interdisciplinary research between journalism and public relations scholarship, as well as provide guidance for ways to better clarify these fields in future research.

Rocky Mountain National Park – 2 ways to look at it

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By Eric Freedman

Moose ambles across a road in the national park. Image: Kalie Buchman

I recently beat Ivanka Trump to Rocky Mountain National Park by a few days, but our purposes for being there were dramatically different.

For Trump, the 358-square-mile natural treasure was a mere backdrop to laud embattled U.S. Sen. Corey Gardner, the Colorado Republican who successfully sponsored legislation to provide more funding for the cash-strapped national park system and other federal lands. He’s up for reelection against John Hickenlooper, a former Democratic governor.

Congressional passage of the bipartisan money bill provided a time peg for the visit by the president’s daughter and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

Trump said in a statement from the White House, “Working with Sen. Gardner on the Great American Outdoors Act, we are securing funding for the next 100 years to preserve our national parks and public lands.”

Mid-summer patches of snow high in Rocky Mountain National Park. Image: Kalie Buchman

The spending bill is intended to reduce a massive backlog of maintenance projects for the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Education. It also will provide permanent and full support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Last year, the Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit research organization, reported an $11.9 billion maintenance backlog at national parks. That figure did not include the cost of maintenance backlogs at the other federal agencies that will benefit from the new funding. Continue reading →