Category Archives: Awards

Knight Center graduate wins national environmental journalism recognition

Brian Bienkowski accepts national award for environmental reporting given by the Society of Environmental Journalists

By Marte Skaara

The Society of Environmental Journalists has recognized an alumnus of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism for excellence in reporting.

Brian Bienkowski, a 2012 Knight Center graduate and former reporter for the center’s Great Lakes Echo environmental news service, received second place in the beat reporting category.

Now a staff writer at Environmental Health News, Bienkowski was recognized Wednesday for five stories under the heading of Environmental Health in the Great Lakes Region. In March his work had been recognized by the national John B. Oakes Award for environmental writing.

When he picked up his award Bienkowski talked about how our MSU professor David Poulson taught him how the area that journalists cover does not have to be a political one, but can be a watershed.

This is what the judges said about the entry: “Brian Bienkowski’s work is a study in environmental-justice reporting. Whether it is a Michigan Indian tribe fighting a new copper mine for fear that sulfuric acid will contaminate sacred waters, or tribes whose culture has been contaminated by industry, or low-income, minority communities of East Chicago where blood samples show three times the normal level of PCBs, he makes the reader understand both the scientific and human dimensions of pollution. And when it comes to more purely scientific concerns, like the role of Great Lake Trout as barometers for the wider pollution of lake ecosystems, he shows deftness and grace in explaining how the tissues of these fish can be read as a history text of the decades of pollution that have soiled these waters.”

Knight Center student Marte Skaara is attending this week’s Society of Environmental Journalists’ national conference in Chattanooga, Tenn.

MSU professor's comparison of environmental journalists and bloggers gains top recognition

Bruno Takahashi

MSU professor Bruno Takahashi is delivering an award-winning paper that compares environmental journalists and environmental bloggers on June 20 at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association in London.
The study found that the journalists and the bloggers have the same level of concern and perceived knowledge about the environment, but that they conceive their roles differently and use different sources. The research examines the implications on the evolving nature of environmental reporting and discourse.
The study, co-authored with Edson Tandoc at the University of Missouri-Columbia,was recognized as a top 2013 faculty award by the association’s Environmental Communication Interest Group. They will be presenting on a panel called Blogs, boundaries, and burly brothers: Building new environmental understanding with new media.
Takahashi, an assistant professor of environmental journalism and communication, is affiliated with MSU’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. He teaches JRN 473/873, Seminar in environmental journalism.

Environmental journalism students receive honors

Four students affiliated with Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism were recognized for outstanding work in environmental reporting.
The students are among those who received awards April 21 at the MSU School of Journalism’s annual convocation at the Kellogg Conference Center on campus. They include:

Jenny Kalish, who received the Edward J. Meeman Award recognizing outstanding work by an undergraduate student and who now works at Waste & Recycling News.
Matt Hall, a J-School graduate student, who was recognized with a Michael A. and Sandra S. Clark Scholarship for Environmental Journalism.
Heather Hartmann, an undergraduate J-School student, also awarded a Michael A. and Sandra S. Clark Scholarship for Environmental Journalism.
Celeste Bott, an undergraduate J-School student, who was honored with the Donald F. and Katherine K. Dahlstrom scholarship for outstanding environmental reporting by a Capital News Service reporter.

Knight Center alum receives national recognition

Brian Bienkowski

Knight Center alum (2012) Brian Bienkowski recently received professional recognition as part of a team receiving honorable mention from judges of the John B. Oakes Award.
The national award recognizes excellence in environmental reporting.
Bienkowski is a senior editor and writer for Environmental Health News, a national nonprofit news service that dispatched reporters to seven cities to profile the environmental health threats facing low-income communities of color. As part of that effort he wrote about a Native American tribe in Michigan, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, that is battling a new mine, which poses a threat to the water that the tribe considers sacred.
“Native Americans are even more vulnerable than other disadvantaged groups because of their reliance on natural resources for survival,” he wrote.
Bienkowski’s job before his Environmental Health News gig was as a reporter for the Knight Center’s Great Lakes Echo news service while a masters student here.
Echo ran this story as part of a cooperative agreement with Environmental Health News. Echo seeks to distribute fine Great Lakes environmental journalism produced by alums, other professionals and, of course, our students.
More here.