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 alum wins national SEJ award, gives tips for success

Brian Bienkowski

By David Poulson
A graduate of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism has won national recognition for a series of environmental stories about the Great Lakes.
Brian Bienkowski, now a reporter and editor at Environmental Health News, received second place in a beat reporting category in the contest sponsored by the national Society of Environmental Journalists.
The series is called Stories of the Great Lakes’ People, Places and Creatures.
Bienkowski, a former reporter for the center’s Great Lakes Echo news service, also received the same award in the same contest last year. He received his masters in journalism degree with a concentration in environmental reporting in 2012 and is the recipient of the center’s Rachel Carson award for outstanding graduate student in environmental journalism.
Here’s a quick Q & A that probes his formula for success:
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Journalist reports how to get the most from a science research field trip

Liu Jian

By Liu Jian

Field visits are an exciting and invaluable part of doing science journalism, as they allow you to gather stories, get a feel of how scientists work and increase your scientific knowledge. As a young reporter, I was lucky to be sent to Kenya to join a research team’s field trip and report on joint China-Kenya research on biodiversity for two weeks in April 2013.
My field trip was part of the Biodiversity Conservation Studies in East African Flora project, which was launched in 2010 by the Wuhan Botanical Garden (WBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. From April 1 to 14, I traveled with 10 Chinese and Kenyan researchers to sites including Mount Kenya National Park, Aberdare National Park and the Maasai Mara National Reserve.
How can journalists get the most out of such trips? I’d love to share some tips for scientific field visits.
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Knight Center alum launches two major productions

Andrew, Angie and Townsend Norman.

Knight Center alum Andrew Norman went full-time today as the executive director of Hear Nebraska, a nonprofit online music news community that he planned as his masters project before graduating from MSU in 2010.
Andrew and his wife, Angie, launched Hear Nebraska that same year. It is a nonprofit organization that cultivates Nebraska’s vibrant, fertile music and arts community. It provides resources and a voice for musicians and members of Nebraska’s creative class and the people and businesses that support them.

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New Knight Center graduate lands editing job, replaces another award-winning alum

Becky McKendry

Outgoing Great Lakes Echo reporter and copy editor Becky McKendry has landed a job as the news editor for the City Pulse, Lansing’s alt-weekly newspaper.
McKendry graduates from the MSU J-School this spring with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a concentration in editorial reporting. She was the co-winner of the school’s outstanding senior award and recognized with the Knight Center Service Award.
She has been affiliated with the center through Echo since January of 2013. She was also the assistant bureau chief and a reporter for MSU’s Capital News Bureau for two semesters.
In addition to covering Lansing City Council for the Pulse and writing assorted print and online news stories, she will be assigning and pitching stories, editing freelance contributions, assisting in layout

Andy Balaskovitz

duties, assisting with the Pulse’s radio and TV shows and overseeing interns.
She takes over the Pulse’s news section from managing/news editor Andy Balaskovitz, a 2009 graduate of the MSU J-School who won the Knight Center’s outstanding undergraduate award in 2008 and 2009.
Balaskovitz has accepted a position as a Michigan fellow for Midwest Energy News.