Category Archives: Research

        
 
 
 
 

SCIENCE CONTROVERSIES

How to report on science controversies

This is the 1st in a series of articles about reporting skills by Knight Center students who attended the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalists conference.

By RUTH THORNTON

Ruth Thornton

How can science journalists cover scientific controversies and scientists’ misconduct without decreasing the public’s trust in science itself?

A panel at this year’s Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference at Arizona State University discussed this gnarly problem.

The panel was moderated by Jackie Mogensen, a reporter with Mother Jones, and included panel members Stepanie Lee, a senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Rodrigo Pérez Ortega, a staff writer with Science magazine and Amy Westervelt, an investigative climate journalist and executive editor of Drilled.

Science controversies panel

Lee described her reporting about Brian Wansink, the now-discredited professor and researcher at Cornell University’s food lab who studied eating behaviors and food marketing.

“This was a lab at an Ivy League university with a lot of media attention and a lot of eye-catching and influential findings published in a lot of different journals,” Lee said.

Then, in 2016 or 2017, non-Cornell data scientists took a closer look at the numbers the studies reported, she said.

They “found a lot of very concerning red flags that somehow had not been noticed before, including straight-out impossible numbers,” Lee said.

She uncovered that the lab had been exaggerating and manipulating their calculations for years, she said.

“They were maniacally focused on getting media attention and buzz for their findings,” she said.

Lee said the faulty results impressed funders and pleased Cornell University.

And they were not detected by the journals. Continue reading

Great Lakes Echo writers win Michigan Press Association awards

The Michigan Press Association has named three Great Lakes Echo writers as winners in its  college newspaper competition for stories published in 2024:

Column, Review or Blog: Reese Carlson, 1st place for “New book explores a lifetime of Great Lakes resilience” and Clara Lincolnhol, 3rd place for “Photobook illuminates the beauty of Michigan lighthouses.”

Feature Story: Jack Armstrong, 3rd place for “Kids raise prehistoric fish as a science lesson”

Environmental communication symposium and workshop hosting Latin American scholars ends in collaboration

BY ANNA BARNES, SHEALYN PAULIS

Symposium participants

From Mon. March 31, to Wed. April 2, 2025, Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) hosted the Counter-Hegemonic Environmental Discourses in Latin American Contexts Symposium and Workshop. The event featured a full day of panels where visiting Latin American scholars representing eight countries presented their research on environmental communication.

Latin American perspectives are often marginalized from international academic spaces. Systematic barriers prevent researchers from being included in global conversations, such as language, translation difficulties and emphasis on work produced in the Global North. Additionally, the availability of funding is a stark contrast for academics in the Global South compared to their northern counterparts. These barriers have made scientific inclusion and cooperation between the Global North and South challenging.

The event highlighted research and scholarship from Latin America, with discussions centered on the communication of environmental health issues, sustainability, environmental journalism, and hegemonic perspectives. It also explored the audiences and sources of environmental communication, with particular attention to Indigenous and marginalized communities. Continue reading

University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum Presentations

Five Knight Center undergraduate assistants have presented their year-long research at MSU’s annual University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum at the Breslin Center.

 

Shealyn Paulis and Anna Barnes

Shealyn Paulis and Anna Barnes, who worked with Knight Center research director Bruno Takahashi, presented their project “Environmental Communication in Latin American Context.”

Patrick Ferrino and Katherine Dyal

 

Katherine Dyal and Patrick Ferrino, who worked with Knight Center director Eric Freedman, presented their project “The Lived Experience of Journalists in Exile.”

 

Clara Lincolnhol

Clara Lincolnhol, who worked with Great Lakes Echo editor Jeff Brooks-Gilles, presented her project “Experience as a Great Lakes Echo Environmental Reporter.”