Category Archives: Eric Freedman

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

Learning to cover environmental crimes

Eric Freedman

By Eric Freedman
More than 30 journalists, press officers and EJ educators learned a lot about covering environmental crimes at a Society of Environmental Journalists conference panel in Oklahoma City.
The criminal justice system plays a key role in enforcement of environmental laws and implementation of public policy. Courts are venues for confrontation in newsworthy conflicts–some with serious human impacts. Cases are as diverse as toxic dumping, poaching, illegal asbestos removal, trafficking in endangered species, destroying wetlands and filing fraudulent reports with environmental regulators — all topics that we cover in Green Gavel stories on Great Lakes Echo.
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Knight Center faculty tell tales of environmental crime and research at SEJ conference

Knight Center director Eric Freedman and senior associate director Dave Poulson will be at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference this week hosted by the University of Oklahoma.
The conference, which attracts hundreds of environmental journalists, environmental communicators, scientists and government experts, focuses on the theme of “Weather, Water Energy: News in Every Neighborhood.” It includes workshops on graphics and video training, panel discussions and field tours on such topics as Superfund cleanups, food research, the impact of drought and climate change, drilling and fracking, water rights and relationships between Native American tribes and land and water issues.
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Knight Center faculty publish steel photography research

Smoke Series, Bethlehem #16, Lackawanna NY 1988:” Image copyright John Pfahl

Environmental impacts of steelmaking are felt in communities where steel is made and beyond, from dramatic changes in landscapes to smoke-darkened horizons to contaminated ponds.
For photographers and other artists—painters, poets, songwriters—those impacts provide an opportunity to use their creative works to draw public attention to ecological conditions at operating and abandoned mills.
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Knight Center alum named engagement editor of Lansing State Journal

Matt Hund

Matt Hund, a 2008 graduate of the Knight Center’s masters program, is the new engagement editor of the Lansing (Michigan) State Journal.
Graduating from MSU—as well as several years working on campus—was a huge benefit to Hund while working toward and developing this opportunity. Time spent at the Knight Center created an editorial voice on important issues and a desire to engage the community in meaningful ways.
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