Category Archives: Alumni

       
 

Echo story gets Alaskan spin thanks to alum and fisheries reporter

MSU J-School alum Margie Bauman. Image: Stacy Hoxsey

MSU J-School alum Margie Bauman. Image: Stacy Hoxsey


The Knight Center and its news service, Great Lakes Echo, got a mention in the Cordova (Alaska) Times, thanks to an alum of Michigan State University’s School of Journalism.
Margaret Bauman (BA ’64) mentioned both in her story about a bacterial disease that afflicts fish. Bauman, who covers fisheries for the Prince Williams Sound publication, got the idea for the story from an Echo report on the same disease in the Great Lakes basin.
That story was reported by Knight Center Director Eric Freedman. While Bauman’s story had the Alaskan spin on the disease, it also mentioned some of the information Freedman reported regarding its presence in the Great Lakes Basin. She credited the story and the center.
Bauman had visited the Knight Center last year and continues to stay in touch with faculty and students – and apparently reads Great Lakes Echo.
In addition to working for the Cordova Times, she is also the Alaska bureau chief for Fisherman’s News in Seattle.

Four MSU alums among journalists, lawyers, scientists improving communication of uncertainty

Four Michigan State University alums now practicing journalism were among those who recently tried to resolve the challenges of communicating uncertainty.
The Washington D.C. workshop they participated in brought together about 45 scientists, lawyers and journalists from across the nation to discuss how each of those groups try to resolve and express uncertainty. They explored the professional ethics that make it difficult to communicate environmental issues as diverse as genetically modified crops and global climate change. Continue reading →

MSU J-School alum credits CNS for launching career

Derek Wallbank chats with a student in the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. Image: Barb Miller

Derek Wallbank chats with a student in the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. Image: Barb Miller


By Colleen Otte
It was spring 2006 and journalism student Derek Wallbank’s final semester at Michigan State University.
He was set to graduate and didn’t have a single published clip.
“I bet that going to CNS would get me the clips that I needed to get a job, and if I was wrong, I was screwed,” Wallbank said. “But CNS is awesome, and I wasn’t wrong.”
CNS – Capital News Service – is an MSU class where students cover state government for news organizations across Michigan.
Wallbank is now team leader of the First Word breaking news desk for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Government in Washington, DC. Continue reading →

Knight Center director, J-School alums mark Pulitzer Centennial

Jim Mitzelfeld, M.L. Elrick and Eric Freedman at Pulitzer Prize Centennial in Washington.

Jim Mitzelfeld, M.L. Elrick and Eric Freedman at Pulitzer Prize Centennial in Washington.


Knight Center Director Eric Freedman and two J-School alumni took part in recent events in Washington, D.C., commemorating the centennial of the prestigious awards in journalism, literature and music.
M.L. Elrick, ‘90, won a 2009 Pulitzer for Detroit Free Press coverage of then-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s corruption scandal.
The Pulitzer judges cited Elrick and Free Press colleague James Schaefer for “their uncovering of a pattern of lies by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick that included denial of a sexual relationship with his female chief of staff, prompting an investigation of perjury that eventually led to jail terms for the two officials.”
Elrick is now a reporter at Fox 2 News (WJBK TV) in Detroit and a member of the of the MSU College of Communication Arts & Sciences alumni board.
As reporters in the Detroit News Lansing Bureau, Freedman and James Mitzelfeld, ‘84, won their 1994 Pulitzer for coverage of a corruption scandal in the Michigan legislature.
Continue reading →