Author Archives: Dave Poulson

Marking a half-century of journalism history

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Berl Schwartz, left, and Eric Freedman

Berl Schwartz, left, and Eric Freedman.


 
Knight Center director Eric Freedman moderated a public conversation with Lansing City Pulse founder and publisher Berl Schwartz about his 50-year-and-counting career in journalism.
That career brought him in contact with such figures as Sen. Teddy Kennedy, philosopher Noam Chomsky, anthropologist Margaret Mead, boxer Muhammad Ali, President Gerald Ford and musicians ranging from Alice Cooper, Janis Joplin and Billy Joel to John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Yoko Ono. Continue reading →

EJ students visit Ontario environmental sites

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Environmental journalism students at the Canadian customs plaza construction site in Windsor for the Gordie Howe Memorial International Bridge. Image: John Parent, Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority

Environmental journalism students at the Canadian customs plaza construction site in Windsor for the Gordie Howe Memorial International Bridge. Image: John Parent, Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority


Knight Center director Eric Freedman’s environmental reporting class spent two days in Sarnia and Windsor to give students Canadian perspectives on major issues – perspectives that don’t always mirror U.S. concerns – and to generate ideas for stories they’re writing for Great Lakes Echo and in future courses and their careers.
In preparation for the trip, Andrew Hupfeau, the Consulate General’s environmental policy expert in Detroit, came to campus the previous week to background the students on the history of U.S.-Canadian environmental cooperation in the Great Lakes Basin and the Canadian government’s position on key environmental issues. Continue reading →

What you see is only part of what you get

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SEJ members kayaking in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers delta. Image: Eric Freedman

SEJ members kayaking in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers delta. Image: Eric Freedman


By Eric Freedman
One of the joys of journalism — environmental journalism in particular — is getting out of the office or other writing space and going somewhere, especially outdoors. Not only do we get to interview people face to face but we also become eyewitnesses to events.
And that provides an opportunity to bring audiences with us in words as well as visually and aurally.
Here’s an example from a recent article I wrote for the magazine Earth Island Journal:
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Knight Center researchers publish study about climate change coverage in the Great Lakes

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Knight Center research director Bruno Takahashi recently co-authored a study in the journal Environmental Communication examining media coverage of climate change in news publications around the Great Lakes region.
The study was co-authored with Kanni Huang, a recent Ph.D graduate from MSU; Fred Fico, emeritus professor in the School of Journalism at MSU,; and Dave Poulson, senior associate director of the Knight Center.
The study, titled Climate change reporting in Great Lakes region newspapers: a comparative study of the use of expert sources, examined the use of expert sources by online news outlets and found that few expert sources were used in the coverage of climate change, compared to non-expert sources such as politicians.
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