By Amalia Medina
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of stories coming out of a recent meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Philadelphia.
When reporting in rural communities, journalists must “listen and shut up.”
That was the advice of former Native News Online managing editor and author Valerie Vande Panne, a panelist at a session of the recent Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference in Philadelphia.
The panel confronted a key issue in rural reporting: helicopter journalism. The practice, which involves a reporter making quick trips to new towns to extract stories, fails to establish a connection, the panelist said. It also fails to reflect communities accurately and it contributes to sowing distrust in the media.
Dave Poulson, the senior associate director of the Knight Center, will retire Aug. 15 after more than 21 years on the MSU Journalism School faculty.
Eric Freedman, Detroit News Pulitzer winner and director of MSU Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, was inducted into the 2024 class of the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame. Congratulations!