Author Archives: knightjrnmsu

Environment reporter talks AP with Knight Center students

John Flesher speaks with students over a pizza lunch. Image: Barb Miller.

John Flesher, left, speaks with journalism students at the Knight Center about his career at the Associated Press. Image: Barb Miller.


By Marie Orttenburger
John Flesher has spent almost his entire news career working for the Associated Press.
That’s given him an up-close view of the wire service’s evolution in the past 35 years.
He evolved as well, growing into environmental coverage and providing the AP with Great Lakes news—a coverage area it had not previously explored.
Flesher recently visited Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism to talk with students about his career path.
He began at the AP doing editing and broadcast writing assignments and general reporting at the Raleigh, North Carolina bureau. He covered a range of subjects before settling into a government and politics beat.
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Dan Fagin talks Toms River, environmental reporting, cats

Dan Fagin discusses environmental journalism and his Pulitzer Prize-winning Toms River with MSU students in the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism

Dan Fagin discusses environmental journalism and his Pulitzer Prize-winning Toms River with MSU students during a pizza lunch in the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. Image: Anthony Cepak


By Marie Orttenburger
Dan Fagin describes epidemiology as “a very long word for a very simple thing.”
What it amounts to is connecting the dots, he said recently at a presentation about his Pulitzer prize-winning book at Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. Though the concept may be “simple,” the process is no small feat.
Fagin is an environmental journalist and director of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. He visited MSU to discuss epidemiology and how he applied it in writing his best-selling book, “Toms River.” Continue reading →