Author Archives: Dave Poulson

MSU J-School alum covers global fisheries from Alaska

Margie Bauman

Margie Bauman


By Colleen Otte
When Margie Bauman placed an ad in Editor and Publisher that read “J-grad, female, will go anywhere,” her degree in journalism from Michigan State University landed her 15 job offers.
That was in 1964. Bauman had come to MSU from Newark, New Jersey, where she graduated from Weequahic High School. The school was great academically, she said, but terrible at football – winning just one game in the four years she attended. She chose MSU because it accepted her just two weeks after she applied.
And it had a winning football team.
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Learning to cover environmental crimes

Eric Freedman

Eric Freedman


By Eric Freedman
More than 30 journalists, press officers and EJ educators learned a lot about covering environmental crimes at a Society of Environmental Journalists conference panel in Oklahoma City.
The criminal justice system plays a key role in enforcement of environmental laws and implementation of public policy. Courts are venues for confrontation in newsworthy conflicts–some with serious human impacts. Cases are as diverse as toxic dumping, poaching, illegal asbestos removal, trafficking in endangered species, destroying wetlands and filing fraudulent reports with environmental regulators — all topics that we cover in Green Gavel stories on Great Lakes Echo.
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Knight Center faculty tell tales of environmental crime and research at SEJ conference

Knight Center director Eric Freedman and senior associate director Dave Poulson will be at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference this week hosted by the University of Oklahoma.
The conference, which attracts hundreds of environmental journalists, environmental communicators, scientists and government experts, focuses on the theme of “Weather, Water Energy: News in Every Neighborhood.” It includes workshops on graphics and video training, panel discussions and field tours on such topics as Superfund cleanups, food research, the impact of drought and climate change, drilling and fracking, water rights and relationships between Native American tribes and land and water issues.
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Knight Center alums earn new positions at Traverse City paper

Danielle Woodward

Danielle Woodward


Knight Center alum Danielle Woodward is a new business reporter at the Traverse City (Michigan)  Record Eagle.
Woodward, a 2015 graduate of Michigan State University’s School of Journalism, is a former reporter for the center’s Great Lakes Echo. She received the Knight Center’s 2015 Service Award and also a National Pulliam Journalism Fellowship.
She served an internship as copy editor at the Arizona Republic during the past summer.
She will be covering businesses in Traverse City and surrounding counties.
Carol Thompson

Carol Thompson


Among the staff that she joins is Carol Thompson, another Knight Center alum who worked at Great Lakes Echo. Thompson, a 2012 MSU graduate, recently picked up environmental reporting responsibilities at the paper.
During her stint with the Knight Center she was awarded the Edward J. Meeman award for outstanding undergraduate student in 2012.  She joined the Record Eagle in 2014 after reporting for two years at the Peninsula Pulse newspaper in Door County, Wis.
The Traverse City Record Eagle is a daily morning newspaper that serves 5 counties in northwest lower Michigan: Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Benzie, Antrim, Kalkaska.  It is owned by Community Newspaper Holding, Inc. along with more than 200 community newspapers throughout the United States.