Category Archives: David Poulson

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

Telling stories to change the world

CIP scientist Willy Pradel explains his research at a mock press conference. Image: David Poulson

CIP scientist Willy Pradel explains his research at a mock press conference. Image: David Poulson


By David Poulson
Jan Kreuze stood in front of a room full of reporters and began shredding paper.
“This is how a plant attacks a virus,” the researcher explained.
Then he bent over and gathered up the pieces. Reassembling them with a computer program is an easier, cheaper way of getting a picture of the disease than sifting through the genetics of an entire plant, he said. And that could lead to better strategies for fighting it. Continue reading

Lessons from the Trump surprise

PoulsonTeachBy David Poulson
The post-election analysis of the U.S. presidential race contains excellent lessons for communicating research and science.
Here’s why:
The question many people are now puzzling over is how could all those highly-educated, highly-paid statisticians and pollsters get the election so wrong. Seemingly no one projected a Trump victory.
And now the science of polling is taking a beating. It may never recover.
Perhaps it never should.
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Poulson re-elected to board of national environmental journalism group

Knight Center Senior Associate Director David Poulson, left, moderates a panel on teaching environmental journalism at the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalism.  On the panel from left are Mark Neuzil, University of St. Thomas; Michael Kodas, University of Colorado; and Don Corrigan, Webster University. Image: Bruno Takahashi

Knight Center Senior Associate Director David Poulson, left, moderates a panel on teaching environmental journalism at the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalism. On the panel from left are Michael Kodas, University of Colorado; Mark Neuzil, University of St. Thomas; and Don Corrigan, Webster University. Image: Bruno Takahashi


Knight Center faculty member David Poulson was recently re-elected to the board of directors of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Poulson is the center’s senior associate director and represents the academic members of the largest national organization that supports journalists who report on the environment. He has been an SEJ member 25 years and has served on the board for three years.
He has taught at MSU nearly 14 years and was an environmental reporter during a 22-year career as a newspaper reporter and editor.
The International Association of Great Lakes Research recognized him in 2015 for decades of sustained efforts to inform and educate the public and policymakers.
Also elected to the SEJ board:

  • Mark Schleifstein, environment reporter at NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune.
  • Kate Sheppard, senior reporter and the environment and energy editor at the Huffington Post.
  • Gloria Dickie, freelance environment writer, photographer and multi-media journalist
  • Dennis Dimick, retired executive environment editor at National Geographic magazine and picture editor at the National Geographic Society.

 
 

Knight Center researchers publish study about climate change coverage in the Great Lakes

Knight Center research director Bruno Takahashi recently co-authored a study in the journal Environmental Communication examining media coverage of climate change in news publications around the Great Lakes region.
The study was co-authored with Kanni Huang, a recent Ph.D graduate from MSU; Fred Fico, emeritus professor in the School of Journalism at MSU,; and Dave Poulson, senior associate director of the Knight Center.
The study, titled Climate change reporting in Great Lakes region newspapers: a comparative study of the use of expert sources, examined the use of expert sources by online news outlets and found that few expert sources were used in the coverage of climate change, compared to non-expert sources such as politicians.
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