Category Archives: Masters

Any MSU School of Journalism masters student can enroll in an environmental journalism class to fulfill graduate requirements or electives.
Students can also complete a specialized master’s degree environmental option that combines environmental journalism, science or policy courses. Students learn advanced reporting techniques for covering complicated environmental issues. The environmental option appears on a graduate’s transcript.
FAQ for masters program.
Students must be admitted into the M.A. Program in Journalism and have selected the Environmental Option. The MSU environmental journalism option requirements are here.

Knight Center and affiliated faculty teach a rotating schedule of graduate-level environmental journalism courses. Consult schedule of courses for the latest offerings.
Graduate students are encouraged to join the student Environmental Journalism Association and report for Great Lakes Echo, the Knight Center’s award-winning non-profit environmental news service.
They are encouraged to augment their study with environment classes and programs elsewhere at MSU such as through the Environmental Science and Policy Program.

Apply

Applications to the School of Journalism’s masters program are accepted on a rolling basis. Students should submit an electronic application and send GRE scores and two copies of their official undergraduate transcript. International students should submit TOEFL scores. Send to:

MSU Admissions Office
250 Administration Building
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Mich. 48824

Applicants should also send the following:

three letters of recommendation
a 750-word autobiography
a 1,000-word statement of purpose
a resume
and an indication of interest in an assistantship or other financial aid
to the Journalism School:

MSU School of Journalism
c/o the Graduate Secretary
School of Journalism
305 Communication Arts Building
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1212

For questions, contact graduate student coordinator Nancy Ashley, ashleyn@msu.edu

Aid

Limited graduate assistantships are occasionally available, depending on faculty research grants. Students may also qualify for scholarships.

Knight Center sponsors paid public radio internship to cover the environment

Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism is sponsoring a fulltime paid internship at Interlochen Public Radio for an MSU student or recent graduate to report on the environment.
The internship is based at the station at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan. Compensation is $1,000 per month plus housing and all meals when the cafeteria is open. Continue reading →

Knight Center student lands research fellowship in Maine

Kevin “Fitz” Duffy

Knight Center student Kevin Duffy recently accepted a research assistantship at the University of Maine in Orono.
Duffy, a second year master’s student at Michigan State University’s School of Journalism, currently reports for the center’s Great Lakes Echo. He was a co-recipient of the Knight Center’s Don Caldwell Memorial Scholarship in Environmental Journalism in 2015.
In August, he will join an interdisciplinary research team to investigate the perceptions of aquaculture — the fresh or salt water farming of fish, shellfish or aquatic plants — and to identify the best practices for communicating aquaculture’s role in coastal economies and food systems.
Continue reading →

Injecting international content into environmental journalism courses

It’s possible to integrate international content into a variety of journalism courses, including environmental journalism, Knight Center director Eric Freedman said on a panel at the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication annual conference in San Francisco.
Drawing from the experience of MSU’s JRN 472/JRN 872 Environmental Reporting course, he explained how Knight Center students report about issues and events that cross the U.S.-Canadian border in the Great Lakes region. To illustrate, he pointed to four student-produced stories that appeared on Great Lakes Echo.
Continue reading →

Knight Center alum lands digital gig at Texas newspaper

Rachael Gleason

Michigan State University Knight Center graduate Rachael Gleason recently joined the San Antonio Express-News as senior producer and data visualization journalist for the premium site, ExpressNews.com. http://www.expressnews.com/
Gleason will call on computer-assisted reporting skills she cultivated as a Knight Center student to focus on online interactive mapping, multimedia presentations and data visualization.
The 2011 alum previously worked for the Hearst Corp. sister newspaper, the Midland Reporter-Telegram, for three years as online editor, reporter and copy editor. She also freelanced for National Geographic’s Great Energy Challenge blog.
During her time at Michigan State, Gleason was a Knight Center graduate assistant, editor of EJ Magazine, associate producer for EJ Television and reported these stories for Great Lakes Echo.
Follow her on Twitter.