Category Archives: Awards

Knight Center student wins journalism awards in diverse media

Greg Monahan

MSU Knight Center for Environmental Journalism graduate student Gregory Monahan was recognized recently by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters and the MSU School of Journalism.
Monahan won two first-place awards in the journalism school’s Best of MSU competition. He also was a member of Focal Point, the newscast that came in first place in the MAB’s College Television Daily Newscast/Sportscast category.
Monahan took the top spot in Best of MSU’s Radio Feature section for his interview with Michigan Technological University professor John Vucetich about Michigan’s wolf hunt, which started Nov. 15 in the state’s Upper Peninsula. The story was published on the center’s Great Lakes Echo news service.
Monahan also won for his weekly humor columns at the State News.
The Best of MSU awards is a new program that recognize the best student journalism at Michigan State during 2013. The school will enter first-place finishes into the Society for Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence awards.
Monahan is in his second semester of graduate work at MSU, and contributes regularly to Great Lakes Echo.

Knight Center research director honored

The MSU College of Communication Arts & Sciences is showcasing Knight Center research director Bruno Takahashi as one of eight faculty members honored for their research and creative activities.
Takahashi, an assistant professor of journalism and communication, is an authority on international news coverage of environmental issues, especially climate change.
Takahashi’s overall research agenda focuses on environmental discourses from an international and intercultural perspective. Within this broad area, he is particularly interested in media representation across nations and its relationships with policy-making.
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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.