Category Archives: Speakers

Veteran journalists visit Knight Center

By Kate Habrel and Ian Wendrow
Longtime journalists John Hughes of Bloomberg News in Washington and Margie Bauman of the Cordova Times in Alaska and Fisherman’s News spoke with Knight Center students on recent visits to MSU.

John Hughes of Bloomberg News in Washington

Hughes, of Bloomberg First Word breaking-news desk in Washington, shared his experiences working in journalism, where he’s covered a broad range of events from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to the “Miracle on the Hudson” airplane landing in New York City
His career included a stint at the Associated Press, when he spent two years in Detroit covering the auto industry and other topics and two years in Washington, where his beat included such natural resources issues as salmon and forestry.
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Covering the waterfront: Workshop gives tips for reporting on water systems

Water expert Joan Rose, left, and journalists and Lansing's Board of Water and LIght treatment plant. The mural depicts the power of water. Image: Eric Freedman

Water expert Joan Rose, right, and journalists at a Lansing water treatment plant. The mural depicts the power of water. Image: Eric Freedman

By Amanda Proscia
Control panels shaped like Oldsmobile sedan grills, car door handles for controls and hubcaps used as light fixtures set the scene for a recent Knight Center workshop on how to report about drinking water.
More than a dozen Michigan journalists and environmental communicators met recently at the Lansing Board of Water & Light’s John F. Dye Water Plant for the daylong workshop, “Beyond Flint: Reporting the Unreported Water Stories in Your Community.”
It’s an unusual water plant with a design inspired by that city’s automotive history. And the walls feature murals depicting the beneficial and destructive potential of water, and another showing human control of nature and the importance of water that was painted by Charles Pollock, brother of the more famous artist Jackson Pollock. Continue reading →

Environment reporter talks AP with Knight Center students

John Flesher speaks with students over a pizza lunch. Image: Barb Miller.

John Flesher, left, speaks with journalism students at the Knight Center about his career at the Associated Press. Image: Barb Miller.

By Marie Orttenburger
John Flesher has spent almost his entire news career working for the Associated Press.
That’s given him an up-close view of the wire service’s evolution in the past 35 years.
He evolved as well, growing into environmental coverage and providing the AP with Great Lakes news—a coverage area it had not previously explored.
Flesher recently visited Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism to talk with students about his career path.
He began at the AP doing editing and broadcast writing assignments and general reporting at the Raleigh, North Carolina bureau. He covered a range of subjects before settling into a government and politics beat.
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Dan Fagin talks Toms River, environmental reporting, cats

Dan Fagin discusses environmental journalism and his Pulitzer Prize-winning Toms River with MSU students in the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism

Dan Fagin discusses environmental journalism and his Pulitzer Prize-winning Toms River with MSU students during a pizza lunch in the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. Image: Anthony Cepak

By Marie Orttenburger
Dan Fagin describes epidemiology as “a very long word for a very simple thing.”
What it amounts to is connecting the dots, he said recently at a presentation about his Pulitzer prize-winning book at Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. Though the concept may be “simple,” the process is no small feat.
Fagin is an environmental journalist and director of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. He visited MSU to discuss epidemiology and how he applied it in writing his best-selling book, “Toms River.” Continue reading →