Fate of the Earth loses friend of the Earth

Barbara Sawyer-Koch

By David Poulson

One of the delights of Michigan State University’s Fate of the Earth conference is the dinner for organizers and speakers the night before.

I always angled to get a seat next to Barbara Sawyer-Koch, a former MSU trustee, who with her late husband Donald Koch, an MSU philosophy professor, endowed this annual conference on sustainability.

It was their support that allowed MSU’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism to help bring top-flight environmental journalists to speak at the event and later meet with our students.

Barb, who died March 6, was an excellent dinner companion. Her interests were far ranging – music, travel, sustainability, international students and a deep love for MSU. They intersected – she spoke knowledgeably about the impact of climate change that she noticed in her travels. And while we did not know each other well, she thoughtfully remembered to accommodate my hearing deficit during those noisy dinners. Continue reading →

EJ students looking at relationships among environment, culture and traditions in Great Lakes region

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By Eric Freedman

Coverage of the environment in the Great Lakes region involves a lot of reporting on nasty stuff—hazardous waste, invasive species, climate change, air pollution and so on. It involves reporting on good stuff—forests, wildlife, waterways, public lands, outdoor recreation, eco-tourism and the like. It involves covering science and social science studies, legislation, public policy and litigation.

At the Knight Center, we’ve also been pushing our students to report more on the relationships among environment, culture and traditions in the Great Lakes region.

Readers of Great Lakes Echo, our award-winning environmental news service, have always responded well to our stories about shipwrecks and lighthouses, both of them environmental icons of the Great Lakes.

But we’ve also been pushing environmental journalism students – those in our classes and those we hire to work at the Knight Center – to pay more attention to other cultural aspects of the region – the humanities and arts of the region. Continue reading →

Environmental issues ahead for Southeast Michigan

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Eric Freedman

Regardless of which presidential candidate takes the oath of office next Jan. 20 and regardless of which party controls Congress for the next two years, the federal government has serious environmental issues to address in Southeast Michigan.

To examine some of those issues for Crain’s Detroit Business, Knight Center director Eric Freedman interviewed the Canadian Consul General in Detroit, the presidents of the Michigan Manufacturers Association and Michigan Environmental Council, the director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor.

Here’s his story.

International reporting tips from the Society of Environmental Journalists conference

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Editor’s note: This is the 3rd^t in a series of posts by environmental reporting students on things they learned at the recent Society of Environmental Journalists conference.

By Audrey Porter

At the international reporting meet-up at the recent virtual Society of Environmental Journalists conference, the speakers gave introductions about themselves, including job titles and locations where they work.

Audrey Porter

But, surprisingly, they wanted to hear a lot about me as I wanted to learn more about them. I spoke and got a little advice about international reporting.

One was speaking world languages when traveling. A speaker mentioned that there are a lot of ethics questions that you have to consider when you’re going between languages, when you’re jumping around places.

I responded by mentioning I took an anthropology class that talked about international traveling and how, in many countries, some things we say and do in America are not okay everywhere. So, if you’re doing international news, study the place you’re going and learn their language.

Another speaker added that getting good connections to people who can help you with translators and other things is the best first value in figuring out how to learn the language as a journalist. Continue reading →