Category Archives: Students

 
Journalism and non-journalism students at Michigan State University explore how to better report environmental issues to the public at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.
 

Environmental journalism courses can help students meet the School of Journalism’s elective requirements. They can also be used as part of an environmental theme to complete the school’s concentration requirement by combining them with environment-related courses outside the journalism program. See your academic adviser or contact the Knight Center.
 
Non-journalism students interested in environmental issues are encouraged to contact instructors to discuss waiver of pre-requisites. Often a journalism environmental course may meet communication course requirements of other departments.
 

 
Undergraduates are also encouraged to join the student Environmental Journalism Association and write for Great Lakes Echo to gain resume-building experience and clips.
 
Undergraduate students are eligible for several awards and scholarships in environmental journalism.
 
They are encouraged to augment their study with environment classes and programs elsewhere at MSU such as the Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment.
 
 

Knight Center researcher among AEJMC Diversity and Inclusion Career Development Fellows

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Iasmim Amiden dos Santos

Doctoral student and Knight Center research assistant Iasmim Amiden dos Santos was selected as one of this year’s Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Diversity and Inclusion Career Development Fellows. Organized by the Mass Communication & Society Division, the program supports graduate students from historically underrepresented groups in the U.S. as they prepare for academic and professional careers in communication fields.

Amiden dos Santos, from Brazil, researches environmental journalism practices, the roles of journalists, and discourses surrounding environmental issues and Indigenous peoples in Latin America. “I see this fellowship as a chance to strengthen my path while supporting more equitable representation in academia and media,” said Amiden dos Santos. Continue reading →

Knight Center Researchers Share Work at International Conference

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Three Knight Center for Environmental Journalism researchers presented their work at the Conference on Communication and the Environment, held June 23–27, 2025, at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia.

Research Director Bruno Takahashi  presented the ongoing project, “The Discursive (De)construction of Oil Spills: A Case Study of Mediaciones in the Peruvian Amazon.” The project, in collaboration with doctoral student Iasmim Amiden dos Santos, combines in-depth interviews with journalists, Indigenous communicators and community members, with participant observation and media content analysis, to unpack how oil spills are framed and contested.

Bruno Takahashi during the discussion of his study

Takahashi also joined the panel “Publishing Environmental Communication: From Aggravations to Aspirations,” sharing insights from his experience as an editor and highlighting ways to make academic publishing more accessible to researchers in the Global South.

Amiden dos Santos also showcased her study, “Ecofeminist and Ecocentric Discourses in Brazilian Independent Media Coverage of the Pantanal and Cerrado.” Her discourse analysis revealed how two independent news outlets in Brazil broke from conventional journalism norms to center marginalized voices, reflecting ecofeminist, anti-capitalist and decolonial perspectives.

Iasmim Amiden dos Santos presenting virtually her study

First-year MA student Julia Belden presented “A Killer Whale Tale: An Analysis of The Miami Herald’s Coverage of the Orca Tokitae from 1970 to 2023.” Her work traced how the newspaper’s coverage shifted over five decades—from entertainment and spectacle to animal welfare, business, and conflict—capturing evolving public attitudes toward a single, iconic animal.

Julia Belden presenting her study

Belden also participated in the conference’s pre- and post-events. The pre-conference brought together graduate students from around the world to share experiences and learn about academic scholarship from senior researchers. The post-conference was a Deep Ecology workshop that invited participants to deepen their connection with nature through guided reflection and immersive activities.

These presentations and activities highlight the Knight Center’s expanding role in global conversations on environmental journalism and its commitment to fostering research with international reach and impact.

 

Decreasing numbers of Gunnison’s prairie dogs in Arizona due to the plague  

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This is the 6th in a series of articles about reporting skills by Knight Center students who attended the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalists conference. 

Isabella Figueroa Nogueira

By Isabella Figueroa Nogueira

Emily Renn is showing her plush prairie dogs to journalists at the SEJ conference in Arizona. Credit: Isabella Figueroa Nogueira

Standing at around 16 inches tall, the native North American rodent has been subject to significant population declines since the early 1900s.

At the Society of Environmental Journalists recent annual conference in Arizona, journalists were taught about the fluctuating numbers of prairie dogs, especially Gunnison’s prairie dogs.

Emily Renn is showing her plush prairie dogs to journalists at the SEJ conference in Arizona. Credit: Isabella Figueroa Nogueira

There are many reasons for the decline in the number of prairie dogs, like hunting, but one factor stands out from the rest: the bubonic plague, said Emily Renn, a PhD student at Northern Arizona University’s School of Earth and Sustainability

“Throughout Arizona, Gunnison’s prairie dogs declined over 96% across their range,” Renn said.

However, even though they were petitioned for protection under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency determined that listing the prairie dog under the Endangered Species Act was not justified.

Historically, their range was much broader than today, but there still is hope, said Jim Devos, the Mexican wolf coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

“We believe that with some of the conservation measures others are implementing, we anticipate if we can get on top of the plague issue, which is the single greatest challenge today, that we can get back to more robust prairie dogs,” said Devos. Continue reading →

Wildfires are changing and the way we report on them should change too, says experts

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By Clara Lincolnhol

Clara Lincolnhol

This is the 5h in a series of feature stories on environmental topics by Knight Center students who attended the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalists conference.

Urban wildfires differ from those that burn through remote forests, and forest management won’t stop them from happening, fire ecologists at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference said.

Fire historian and author Stephen Pyne says we’re dealing with a fire crisis. There’s too much bad fire, too much combustion and not enough good fire, he says.

“We have broken the serial ice ages of the Pleistocene and transformed a minor interglacial into a fire epoch — what I call the Pyrocene,” Pyne said.

The major culprit for increased “bad fires” is human fossil fuel combustion which contributes to climate change and makes wildfires more intense, he said.

Thinning forests is a way to prevent out-of-control fires, but those treatments are rarely done near communities and structures, rendering them unhelpful to deal with the problem of urban wildfires, said Dominick DellaSala, the chief scientist at Wild Heritage, a forestry organization.

These methods are called “fuel treatments” because they attempt to eliminate natural overgrowth and an abundance of kindling materials that fires use to grow and spread.

Thinning and logging can also create problems and contribute to the problem of “bad fires” since deforestation releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.

Brian Kittler, the chief program officer of American Forests, says building fire-resilient communities requires preparing the communities and not just the forests nearby.

Updating zoning laws, infrastructure, using ignition-resistant materials while building and having defensible space around one’s property are more effective than “fuel treatments,” he said. Continue reading →