By Eric Freedman
The COVID-19 pandemic is all around us, saturating news reports, dominating conversations, shuttering businesses, isolating hundreds of millions, disrupting schools, derailing sports and the arts, befuddling science.
Meanwhile, pummeling us are natural disasters as diverse as wildfires in Australia and the American West, hurricanes and tropical storms in the Caribbean and Southeast U.S., typhoons in Japan and the Koreas, landslides in Nepal and India.
By Taylor Haelterman
Taylor Haelterman
This summer I had the opportunity to work at WKAR Radio, a National Public Radio affiliate, as an environmental reporting intern. In this position, I was able to create spots, super-spots and features that aired on “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” with written accompaniments published online.
Two of the pieces I’m most proud of are “Parks And Recreation Interest Spikes As Michigan Reopens” and “MSU Study Finds No-Till Farming Yields Long-Term Economic Benefits.”
The parks and recreation story holds a special place in my heart because it’s the first piece I ever produced for a radio station outside of Michigan State University’s student station. And the story on no-till farming makes this list because it was the story that made me realize how far my reporting skills had developed in only a couple of months. Continue reading
Tony Van Witsen
Former Knight Center doctoral researcher Tony Van Witsen will begin teaching next week as a full time visiting faculty member at Alma College, a small liberal arts school in Alma, Michigan. He will be teaching two undergraduate courses, Research Methods and Relational Communication, which will mostly encompass the relationship between science and policy. Tony entered the I & M program in August of 2014 and successfully defended his dissertation this past May. His research examines news coverage of environmental controversies and complex scientific issues, particularly the ways journalists make sense of statistics.
Editor’s note: Eric Freedman, the director of Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, is among 23 Knight chairs nationwide who signed this open letter regarding arrests and violence directed at journalists during protests demanding racial justice:
In recent weeks, the latest killings of African-Americans by law enforcement have not only anguished our country but locked its attention on police brutality directed at communities of color. As Americans have tried to come to terms with our history of racism, we condemn its presence in our profession and call for media outlets to diversify their staffs from the top down. We also note that journalists, including those of color, have been victims of police misconduct in recent days, and we are disturbed at the large number of attacks perpetrated on all those attempting to uphold a free press in the service of democracy.