The Knight Center’s new class, News eye in the clear sky, picked up coverage recently in the State News, Michigan State University’s student newspaper.
The story looks at the integration of drones into research and curriculum at MSU. The journalism course is examining the use of remote sensing technology in the pursuit of environmental journalism.
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Our Commitment: Opening thoughts from the new Knight Center director
Eric Freedman
By Eric Freedman (Eric Freedman was recently appointed as the chair & director of MSU’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism)
The times, they are a-changin’, and as I take on the position of Knight Chair and director, I know that we don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowin’. For environmental and science journalists, those rapid, dramatic changes come in the technology we use to gather and analyze information, in the media that disseminates the fruits of our reporting, in the expectations of our audiences and in the issues and events we cover.
Yet many things at our core don’t change.
Here at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, we remain
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Environmental Journalism Association to elect officers, discuss tours and trips, social media presence
By Evan Kreager
Members of the Environmental Journalism Association meet at 5 p.m. Thursday to elect officers, discuss camping trips and a tour of an organic farm and to develop fresh ideas.
The group of students interested in environmental issues and reporting meets in the Knight Center at 382 Communication Arts and Sciences.
An MSU-EJA Facebook page and a WordPress blog will be up and running soon.
Also this week the group will go over details about Powershift, the weekend-long youth leadership and environmental action conference in Pittsburgh this October.
If you haven’t been to a meeting yet, don’t be shy! We would love to see some new faces.
First flight: MSU journalism students take camera aloft in public television studio
Marte Skaara, a student at MSU’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, pilots a drone with a high definition camera through a WKAR studio.
The camera flew through the WKAR public television studio on four rotors, spinning and even flipping as it recorded high definition images.
MSU students operated the drone with an I-Pad, getting a feel for the challenges of controlling a video feed while keeping the camera aloft. The exercise is part of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism’s new course, News eye in the clear sky.
The course examines the use of remote sensing devices – satellite images, data from buoys, Internet cameras, motion sensors, wildlife tracking sensors and drones – to better explain complex environmental issues to the public.
Federal regulators have not yet released rules for the civilian use of drones outdoors. But the potential these Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have for capturing images has journalists and others plenty interested in how the technology will be harnessed.
They are particularly valuable for covering environmental issues and large scale landscape changes.
The MSU students are studying remote sensing technology’s potential application to journalism and other fields. At the same time they are researching the ethical and privacy concerns that such technology poses.
The course is taught by Knight Center Associate Director David Poulson.
Evan Kreager flies with Erik Stiem as co-pilot.