Category Archives: Uncategorized

Knight Center partners team up to report on threats to Great Lakes whitefish

Clara Lincolnhol

Environmental journalism intern Clara Lincolnhol of WKAR radio and environmental journalist Kelly House of Bridge Michigan recently discussed threats to Great Lakes whitefish populations in a public radio broadcast.

Lincolnhol’s internship is underwritten by the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. House, a Knight Center alum, reports for Bridge Michigan, which partners with the Knight Center as part of the Mott Foundation’s Great Lakes News Collaborative.

Here are the highlights and a transcript of Lincolnhol’s interview with House.

Great Lakes whitefish populations could soon disappear for good

By Clara Lincolnhol

Whitefish are a beloved and iconic Michigan species that have been a staple of the state’s cuisine for centuries.

But their numbers have dwindled drastically recently leaving some worried that the fish will no longer populate the lower Great Lakes.

Kelly House

WKAR’s Clara Lincolnhol spoke with Bridge Michigan reporter Kelly House who recently reported on why the fish population is declining and whitefish’s cultural and economic significance to Michiganders.

Interview Highlights

On how invasive quagga mussels are threatening whitefish

Scientists have been responding to the threat by trying to find some way to suppress mussel populations in the Great Lakes. They now cover essentially every inch of the lakebed, and the problem is that they’re filter feeders, and they have filtered away the plankton and nutrients that other species in the Great Lakes really rely upon for food. So, these baby whitefish are born. The only thing they eat in their first days of life is phytoplankton, and those plankton are now nowhere to be found, so these babies are essentially starving to death before they ever have the opportunity to grow.

Photo Credit: Michigan Sea Grant

On the future of whitefish in parts of the Great Lakes Continue reading

Knight Center alum investigates toxic plume in Ann Arbor

Elinor Epperson

What began as a professional project at Michigan State has turned into a feature project at Michigan Public radio.

Elinor Epperson spent 18 months researching, writing, fact-checking and editing a series of threelongform articles about the Gelman plume, an area of groundwater contamination under Ann Arbor that is several decades old.

The contamination comes from the disposal of industrial wastewater disposal by Gelman Sciences, a one-time medical filter manufacturer.

She also wrote a reporter’s notebook and appeared on the Stateside podcast to provide a more condensed version of the project.

Epperson earned her master’s degree in journalism from the MSU School of Journalism in fall 2024 and still works at the station as an intern.

LATINEX REPORTING 

How to report on an underserved community and their sensitive information

This is the 3rd in a series of articles about reporting skills by Knight Center students who attended the 2025 Society of Environmental Journalists conference.

By Isabella Figueroa Nogueira

Isabella Figueroa Nogueira

With the new Trump administration, reporting on Latinx communities has been more difficult than ever to keep undocumented people and their information safe.

SEnvironmental journalists discussed that situation at the 2025 Society of Environmental conference in Arizona.

The panel was called “When There Is No Data Available: How to Report Environmental Stories on Latinx Communities in a Hostile Administration?”

The panelists talked about the many ways reporters can collect the data needed to report while protecting marginalized communities.

Monica Samayoa, a climate reporter at Oregon Public Broadcasting, talked about walking in neighborhoods and knocking on doors with someone the community knows and trusts, like a lawmaker or a community leader. Talking to people face-to-face can make them feel comfortable sharing their sensitive information.

MSU SEJ LATINEX PANEL

Door-to-door knocking can be effective in some places, but not in Puerto Rico, according to Luis J. Méndez González, a climate change investigative reporter at Centro de Periodismo Investigativo.

People will kick you out of their homes if you knock on their door and try to get information out of them, he said.

“I call them. I’ll talk to them about the issue and, if they feel comfortable, then I will go to their homes or maybe I will meet them in a church or in a business,” said Méndez González. Continue reading

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