Category Archives: Classes


Although the lab course numbers remain the same, topics change semester to semester. Check MSU’s schedule of courses for the latest information. The three-credit courses can be taken more than once.
Completion requirements for the graduate 800 level courses are greater than those of the undergraduate 400 level courses.
 
JRN 472/872 Lab Environmental Reporting
This course gives students hands on experience producing environmental news stories. Class-produced stories meeting professional standards are published on the center’s award-winning Great Lakes Echo non-profit news service. Students have analyzed the ecological footprint of Spartan Stadium and the pollution inputs into the Red Cedar River. They have waded in rivers to examine macroinvertebrates, analyzed and mapped data and explored creative reader engagement techniques such as this one modeled after Jaywalking on the Tonight Show or this one that gives clues to polluted sites. Others include the Great Lakes Smackdown and the popular carp bombs. The course offers a great way to pick up clips and experience. Story types vary by student interest and skill but can encompass text, audio, photography, video and creative reader engagement strategies. Topics vary semester to semester and students can take the course more than once and for variable credit.
In the fall of 2013 the course is called News eye in the clear sky. Students will shoot video from an aerial drone while exploring the exciting opportunities and thorny ethical and legal challenges of new ways of perceiving the environment with satellite imagery, drones and other remote sensing techniques. And they will look at some of the newsworthy aspects of the other civilian applications of such technology.
 
JRN 473/873 Seminar in environmental journalism
The course focuses on news media reporting of environmental, scientific and health issues. The seminar is mostly guided by the following question: How can journalists deal with scientific uncertainty and the inherent complexities of environmental and health issues? The discussions cover topics such as: journalists’ role conceptions, journalistic norms, environmental discourses in popular culture, use of expert sources, reporters’ beliefs and perceptions, organizational constraints, and the gap between journalistic and scientific cultures, among others. We discuss historical and current issues where science has played a central role in their media reporting. These issues include, among others: energy, smoking, climate change, ozone layer hole, GMOs, hydraulic fracturing, population growth, and natural disasters.
 
Elsewhere within the School of Journalism
Students are encouraged to explore environmental reporting in the context of other journalism classes such as feature writing, multi-media production, broadcast, Capital News Service and public affairs classes. Instructors of such classes often collaborate with the Knight Center.
 
Elsewhere at MSU
Both graduate and undergraduate students interested in environmental reporting are encouraged to broaden their knowledge of environmental science and policy by exploring related coursework at MSU. This is required of undergraduates seeking an environmental concentration and of masters students pursuing the environmental option.
Among the Knight Center affiliated programs at MSU are the Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment for undergraduates and the university’s Environmental Science and Policy Program for graduate students.
  

 

Putting a news eye in the clear sky

By David Poulson
Students in MSU’s JRN 472 have been practicing shooting video and still images from a drone in WKAR’s Studio A.
The craft has a high definition camera that points outward and another camera that points directly below.

MSU students Juliana Moxley, left, and Carly Giles fly a drone in the journalism class called News eye in the clear sky. Image: Kevin Duffy

MSU students Juliana Moxley, left, and Carly Giles fly a drone in the journalism class called News eye in the clear sky. Image: Kevin Duffy


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Students study use of unmanned aircraft; study applications to reporting on the environment

By David Poulson
Michigan State University environmental journalism students recently observed a practice flight of an unmanned aircraft over a university farm field.
Researchers are preparing to use the craft to analyze the health of grass for a turf management company. The project is undertaken by the university’s Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems program.
The journalism students are studying the applications of such craft – popularly known as drones – and how they can be used to cover environmental news stories.
Related story.

Robert Goodwin, the unmanned aerial systems project manager for MSU's Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems program, explains a training flight to journalism students.

Robert Goodwin, the unmanned aerial systems project manager for MSU’s Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems program, explains a training flight to journalism students. Image: David Poulson


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Can a tether unleash drones for environmental reporting

Image: Fotokte

Image: Fotokte


By David Poulson
Simple solutions to complex problems are best.
And I think I may have stumbled over one relevant to experimental environmental journalism.
Here at the Knight Center for Envrionmental Journalism we report on the potential of drones in a number of non-military applications. It’s sort of a swords-into-plowshares tale with twists involving privacy, safety, ethics and other red flags.
Our interest is driven by a desire to explore new methods of gathering environmental data and of telling environmental stories. Drones have exciting potential that we have explored in the classroom at Michigan State University’s School of Journalism.
We’ll do that again this fall in JRN472 and JRN 872, News eye in the clear sky. Meanwhile, check out this development.
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Depicting a 'Rosie' climate

Image: Eric Freedman

Image: Eric Freedman


By Eric Freedman
The Obama administration’s recently proposed rule to reduce power plant emissions that contribute to climate change – or climate disruption – has provoked sharp criticisms from Republicans and utility companies as too expensive or unworkable or unnecessary. Meanwhile, some environmental groups say the EPA plan doesn’t go far enough.
Relying on executive authority under the Clean Air Act, the rule is aimed at carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that produce an estimated 40 percent of U.S. carbon pollution.
In a May 31 address, President Barack Obama said, “Earlier this month, hundreds of scientists declared that climate change is no longer a distant threat – it ‘has moved firmly into the present.’”
But of course, there are skeptics who deny that human-induced climate change is a crucial problem, not just in the United States but globally.
How do they explain climate disruption?
Well, at the recent Denver Chalk Art Festival in the city’s historic Larimer Square district, I saw this piece of art titled “Wrath of Rosie.” I don’t know what the sidewalk artist intended to depict, but to me it can be interpreted as one alternative, non-scientific, explanation of climate change.
Eric Freedman is Michigan State University’s director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism