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 student wins journalism awards in diverse media

Greg Monahan

MSU Knight Center for Environmental Journalism graduate student Gregory Monahan was recognized recently by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters and the MSU School of Journalism.
Monahan won two first-place awards in the journalism school’s Best of MSU competition. He also was a member of Focal Point, the newscast that came in first place in the MAB’s College Television Daily Newscast/Sportscast category.
Monahan took the top spot in Best of MSU’s Radio Feature section for his interview with Michigan Technological University professor John Vucetich about Michigan’s wolf hunt, which started Nov. 15 in the state’s Upper Peninsula. The story was published on the center’s Great Lakes Echo news service.
Monahan also won for his weekly humor columns at the State News.
The Best of MSU awards is a new program that recognize the best student journalism at Michigan State during 2013. The school will enter first-place finishes into the Society for Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence awards.
Monahan is in his second semester of graduate work at MSU, and contributes regularly to Great Lakes Echo.

Environmental journalists should seek the high ground for context

David Poulson

By David Poulson

I once worked with a photographer who had two informal rules on every out-of-town assignment: Eat well on the company dime and never miss the chance to fly.

I certainly enjoyed those expense account meals that I shared with Ralph. But I think the greater lesson was in his insistence on flight.
I don’t mean flying to an assignment. That never happened. But Ralph was convinced that the only way we could truly capture a news story was by renting a plane.
It wasn’t just a photo thing.
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Drones, language and The New York Times

David Poulson

By David Poulson
We’re always on the look out for innovative stories and reporting techniques at Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.
In a couple weeks we’ll launch a series on civilian applications of drones for gathering information about the environment. I teach a course encompassing remote sensing, including the use of drones, as newsgathering tools.
So a story in the print edition of the New York Times, Drones Offer Journalists a Wider View, caught my eye at Monday’s breakfast table. It’s an interesting enough piece about a controversial technology. But what startled me was this sentence:
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Knight Center student attends national environmental journalism conference

By Marte Skaara

Will the growth of today’s new cities outpace efforts to encourage sustainability? Will coastal cities be able to prepare for the impacts of climate change? And how can journalists tell stories on these complex issues in new and innovative ways?

These are some of the questions that were touched upon by speakers and discussed by journalists and experts on Wednesday, the first day of the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference in Chattanooga, Tenn. Participants were from the U.S., Africa, Asia and Norway. (Yes, that’s me; the Norwegian girl.)

Willie Shubert from the Earth Journalism Network showed amazing interactive maps and introduced the idea of GeoJournalism. Caroline D’Angelo from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting showed some of the amazing multimedia projects and e-books her group created.

The Pulitzer Center has options for student internships that sound very cool.

I’ve handed out two business cards (I got one back after it had been digitalized) and met interesting environmental journalists from many places in the U.S. and from Kenya, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Pakistan. I’m looking forward to the rest of the week here in Chattanooga and I’m sure I will learn a lot.

Marte Skaara, a student at Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental journalism is attending the Society of Environmental Journalists national conference this week.