Category Archives: Eric Freedman

Eric Freedman is the director of Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism

Paid summer reporting internships available for MSU students at five Michigan news organizations

Michigan State University students with diverse backgrounds and life experiences are eligible for five paid internships this summer at major multi-media Michigan news organizations.

These internships through MSU’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism meet the MSU J-School’s internship requirement. Environmental expertise or particular interest is not required. But you’ll gain both.

The application deadline is 10 p.m. on March 26, 2025

Four internships are with members of the Great Lakes News Collaborative, a group of independent and multi-media news organizations. They are:

Bridge Michigan, Michigan’s largest nonprofit news service
Great Lakes Now at Detroit Public Television, a monthly magazine-style television program with online daily reports
Circle of Blue, a Traverse City-based news service reporting on worldwide water challenges
Michigan Public – Michigan’s largest NPR news outlet.

A fifth internship is at Planet Detroit, an independent nonprofit local news organization that reports on the environment and public health in Detroit and Southeast Michigan.

FAQ

Q: Who is eligible?

A: Michigan State University students with diverse backgrounds and life experiences. That includes students graduating at the end of spring semester 2025 or later. It includes students who major in journalism, digital storytelling and other relevant majors. Continue reading →

New article by Knight Center director on international press coverage of religious freedom

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A madrassah in Uzbekistan

The Conversation has published Knight Center director Eric Freedman’s latest article on how the international press covers – and fails to cover – constraints on freedom of religion and faith.

“Religious freedom is routinely curbed in Central Asia but you won’t see it making international news” is drawn from a research project Freedman conducted with professorial assistant Eleanor Pugh of the MSU Honors College. The results of their study were presented at the August 2024 conference of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication.

The Conversation is a nonprofit independent news service that publishes articles by academic experts written for the general public and edited by a team of journalists.

This is Freedman’s sixth article for The Conversation, two of which were translated into French and Indonesian.

Keeping on top of the news, Great Lakes Echo style

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Eric Freedman

By Eric Freedman

As journalists and as researchers, the Knight Center’s faculty and students keep up with, report about and study the latest environmental developments. Although we’re based here at Michigan State’s School of Journalism, our scope and interests go far beyond Michigan with a particular emphasis on the Great Lakes region.

We’re also international in scope and not just about Canada. For example, our faculty and grad students are conducting research projects and training professional journalists in Latin America, China and Central Asia.

Environmental issues in our region reflect national concerns.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development has just released a list of 10 of the most-read stories in its Science Matters newsletter in 2024. Last year, our Great Lakes Echo environmental news service reported on a majority of those same topics for our readers.

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Trust in media down, but what does ‘the media’ mean’?

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By Eric Freedman

Americans’ trust in the media remains at a record low, a new Gallup poll reports, with only 31% of those surveyed expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the press.

That is a lower confidence rate for the press than for Congress, federal courts and respondents’ own state and local government.

The high point in trust in the media came in the 1970s at 68% to 72% of those polled, according to Gallup.

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