Category Archives: David Poulson

David Poulson is the senior associate director of Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.

Students can get support to attend SEJ conference

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A limited number of Michigan State University students can attend a national journalism conference for free this week in Flint.

The conference at the University of Michigan – Flint campus is the nation’s largest meeting of journalists who report on the environment. This year’s conference will include sessions on environmental justice and the urban environment. A full agenda of the conference Wednesday through Sunday is at https://www.sej.org/sej-annual-conferences/AC2018-agenda

The Knight Center has limited support to cover one-day registrations of MSU students. For availability, contact Barb Miller, mille384@msu.edu.

Knight Center faculty teach environmental journalism in Chile

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Students at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Concepcion, Chile, participate in an exercise led by Knight Center faculty. Image: David Poulson

Students at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Concepcion, Chile, participate in an exercise led by Knight Center faculty. Image: David Poulson

By David Poulson

Chile’s Chiflon del Diablo coal mine descends more than 3,000 feet below sea level before extending some five miles under the Pacific Ocean.

Miners no longer undertake the back-breaking, thigh-burning trek through low tunnels to extract coal – the mine closed in 1990. It’s now a tourist attraction operated by former miners and one that I visited as part of a 10-day swing through Chile while teaching environmental journalism with Knight Center Director Eric Freedman and Research Director Bruno Takahashi.

The three of us recently lectured at four universities in three Chilean cities as part of a $40,000 project funded by the U.S. State Department to further investigative reporting in that country. Continue reading →

Knight Center grad recognized as young environmental leader

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Haley Walker

Haley Walker

Knight Center alum Haley Walker recently joined the  Oregon Environmental Council‘s Emerging Leaders Board.

The council’s advisory board of “entrepreneurs, strategist, community leaders and visionaries under the age of 40 have agreed to share their extraordinary skills to support the mission of Oregon Environmental Council.”

Walker, who graduated from the Knight Center in December of 2010, is the senior communications director with The Freshwater Trust, the oldest wild fish conservation group in the Pacific Northwest.

While at MSU she wrote for the Knight Center’s award-winning EJ Magazine and was an early reporter for the center’s Great Lakes Echo environmental news service. The stories she covered for those publications were as diverse as climate change in national parks and gardens maintained by prison inmates and confessing to spending half her income on organic food.

As a student she was part of an award-winning team recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists for a series of stories about water quality problems at public pools. The Knight Center awarded her the Edward J. Meeman Service Award in 2010.