MSU to offer environmental filmmaking
course in fall 2002

Would you like to learn how to make films and videos about wildlife, nature and environmental issues?

Then sign up for “Environmental Filmmaking,” a new course that will be jointly taught in the fall of 2002 by Jim Jabara, an award-winning filmmaker, and Jim Detjen, director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. This three-credit course (JRN 408, Section 2) will be taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 4:50 p.m.

Students will learn how to research and write the script for a video and actually produce a short film or video on an environmental or nature-related subject in the course. Both Detjen and Jabara will work with the students to get their video broadcast on television.
Jabara is an award-winning wildlife filmmaker who has traveled around the globe making nature and wildlife films for the BBC, CNN, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Public Broadcasting Service and other television broadcasters. His production company, Our Small Planet Productions, is based in East Lansing, Mich.

Detjen has also traveled worldwide, reporting about such global environmental topics as climate change, destruction of the ozone layer, the loss of rainforests and other science and environmental issues. Before joining the MSU faculty in 1995, he worked for 21 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Louisville Courier-Journal and other news organizations. He was the founding president of the Society of Environmental Journalists and also served for six years as the president of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists.

While this course is being primarily marketed to journalism students, other majors are also welcome to enroll. However, because enrollment is limited, students must get permission from the instructors or the Journalism department in order to enroll.
If you are interested, contact Barb Miller, assistant to the Knight Chair, at (517) 432-1415 or mille384@msu.edu.

Tokyo conference elicits suggestion for
World Federation of Science Journalists

More than 300 people from around the world participated in the International Conference of Science and Technology Journalists held Oct. 24–26, 2001, in Tokyo, Japan.

One of the highlights of the conference, which was held in the new high-tech Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay, was the proposal to create a new World Federation of Science Journalists. A core group of a dozen journalists, including Knight Professor Jim Detjen of Michigan State University, drafted the framework, which was approved by the conference participants.

The new world federation will serve as an umbrella group for international, national and regional science journalism associations, as well as individuals. It will base its headquarters at the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg, France, and will work to foster communication and networking between science journalists worldwide.

An ad hoc committee of science journalists will work to officially found the World Federation of Science Journalists at the third World Congress of Science Journalists, which will be held Nov. 24–27 in San Jose de Campos, Brazil.

Among the signers and drafters of the new framework were Paul Gauthier of Canada; Lisbeth Fog of Columbia; Wolfgang Goede of Germany; Kenji Makino and Mariko Takahashi of Japan; Istvan Palugyai of Hungary; Darryl D’Monte of India; Werner Hadorn of Switzerland; Alun Anderson of the United Kingdom; and Jim Detjen, James Cornell and Paul Raeburn of the United States.

During the Tokyo conference, which was broadcast nationally on Japan’s Science Channel, the participants discussed scientific trends that will affect science journalism in the 21st Century. Professor Detjen discussed the media’s coverage of global climate change and the Kyoto Treaty.

Other participants discussed the growth of Web-based science news, the growing commercialization of the news media with its resulting emphasis on entertainment over news; the growing complexity of many scientific issues and the need to involve citizens in decisions about scientific research.

More information about the new world federation can be obtained by contacting Werner Hadorn at wernerhadorn@compuserve.com.

Seeing green?
Knight Center offers high school students $1,000 scholarship for study of environmental journalism

High school students interested in studying environmental and science journalism are eligible again in 2002 for a $1,000 scholarship that is given by the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University.

Students from anywhere in the United States are eligible to apply for the scholarship, which is given annually to an outstanding high school senior. The winner will be given a plaque and a $1,000 scholarship to attend Michigan State University to study environmental and science journalism.

In addition to the plaque and $1,000 scholarship, the winner will be invited to participate in the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association dinner and spring conference in April 2002.

“It is my hope that this scholarship will encourage some of the brightest and most talented high school journalism students to attend Michigan State University to study environmental and science journalism,” said Jim Detjen, director of MSU’s Knight Center in Environmental Journalism. “There is a vital need to educate future journalists to fairly and accurately write about complex environmental and scientific subjects.”

The Michigan State University Environmental Journalism Program was established in 1994 with a $1 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Detjen, an award-winning reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, was hired by the university to establish the program. The Knight Center was established in 1999 with an additional $500,000 grant from the Knight Foundation.

Students at MSU can earn bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in journalism and the mass media with a focus on environmental issues. MSU’s Environmental Journalism Program is also involved in a wide range of other research and outreach projects including:

• An annual week-long Great Lakes Environmental Journalism Training Institute that is held each spring for 25 journalists from the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes and Ontario, Canada.
• The Meeman Archives, the nation’s best collection of environmental journalism in daily newspapers, was moved to Michigan State University from the University of Michigan in the spring of 1997.
• The publication of EJ, a magazine of the environmental journalism program; videotapes; handbooks; a Web site (http://environmental.jrn.msu.edu) and other resource materials for environmental journalists.
• The North American office of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists, a nonprofit organization that links together environmental journalists from around the globe, is based at MSU’s Environmental Journalism Program.
  

High school teachers, administrators or students interested in applying for the MSU Environmental Journalism Scholarship can obtain information by contacting Barb Miller at the Environmental Journalism Program, School of Journalism, 382 Communication Arts Building, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1212; by calling (517) 432-1415; or sending an e-mail to mille384@msu.edu. The deadline for applying is April 6, 2002.

Students interested in applying should submit a typed letter outlining their career plans and why he or she is interested in a career in environmental or science journalism. They should include one recommendation from an adviser or administrator; a list of activities and achievements in scholastic journalism; and a completed application form.

Workshop on Latin American environmental journalism planned in 2003

The Knight Center for Environmental Journalism has begun planning for an international conference on Latin American environmental journalism in Mexico. Knight Professor Jim Detjen is working with Susana Guzman, a Mexican environmental journalist and master’s student in the environmental journalism program, to organize the conference. It is slated to be held in the fall of 2003.

Among the other organizations expected to be involved in this conference’s planning are the MSU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Reforma and El Norte newspapers in Mexico, the U.S. Society of Environmental Journalists and the MSU College of Communication Arts and Sciences.

For more information, contact Barb Miller, assistant to the Knight Chair at (517) 432-1415 or mille384@msu.edu.

Training Institute plans for sixth annual
event in June 2003

American and Canadian journalists are again invited to apply for the sixth Great Lakes Environmental Journalism Training Institute. The training program will be held at the Kellogg Conference Center at Michigan State University June 17–21, 2003.

Since 1996, more than 120 journalists from Canada and the eight states bordering the Great Lakes have received training at this week-long institute. The institute consists of seminars on Great Lakes environmental issues, hands-on workshops on environmental journalism and computer–assisted reporting, tours and social events. Among the highlights each year are trips on an environmental research vessel on Lake Michigan, nature hikes at the Ledges in Grand Ledge and visits to a Lansing Lugnuts baseball game at Oldsmobile Stadium.

Each journalist selected will receive a resource guide on environmental journalism and numerous handouts.

Many top journalists have spoken at the institute, including Andrew Revkin, the national environmental writer for The New York Times; Casey Bukro of the Chicago Tribune, Mike Mansur of the Kansas City Star; Rae Tyson, former environmental writer for USA Today; Steve Curwood, host of National Public Radio’s Living on Earth; and Heather Newman, a computer-assisted reporting specialist at the Detroit Free Press.

The Knight Center pays for all meals, lodging expenses, books and other educational materials. Journalists selected must pay a $75 registration fee and for their traveling expenses to East Lansing, Mich.

For an application form and other information about the 2003 institute, contact Barb Miller, assistant to the Knight Chair, at (517) 432-1415 or mille384@msu.edu.

Names in the news

Liz Burch, Ph.D. ’97(Mass Media), teaches classes in Northern California at Sonoma State University on media ethics, environmental and international communications and scriptwriting. She has published articles on the media in the International Journal of Communication, the International Journal of Environmental Studies, Journal of Film and Video, Communications and the Law and Mass Comm Review. Her current research examines how journalists discuss environmental racism in their coverage of pesticides in California’s wine industry.

Jim Detjen, Knight Professor, has been selected to serve on the editorial board of a new scholarly publication, Journal of Applied Environmental Education and Communication. He also wrote about the status of international environmental journalism in the fall 2001 issue of the International Press Institute’s IPI Global Journalist magazine.

Susana Guzman, master’s ’03 (Journalism), served as an environmental reporter for Televisa, the biggest TV station in Mexico, and as an editor of the environmental section of To2.com, the first Latin American newspaper online. Currently, she is a graduate assistant in the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism and working on a 2003 workshop for Mexican environmental journalists.

Ivona Lerman, master’s ’01 (Environmental Journalism), is writing about marine science and environmental issues at the Daytona Beach (Fla.) News Journal. Her address is 407 W. Seminole Blvd, Apt. 244, Sanford, FL 32711.

Brian McKenna, Great Lakes ’01, was awarded the 2001 Environmental Achievement Award by the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor for his environmental assessment work at the Ingham County Health Department and for his reporting about the environment and health for City Pulse, an alternative weekly newspaper in Lansing, Mich.

Amy Nevala, master’s ’97 (Fisheries and Wildlife), is writing about environmental and science issues as an intern at the Chicago Tribune. In December 2001 she took students in MSU’s environmental writing class on a tour of the newspaper’s newsroom. She can be reached at anevala@tribune.com.

Kristen Tuinstra, master’s ’02 (Journalism), wrote articles on fuel cell technology and other environmental issues for the 2002 DaimlerChrysler’s environmental report and magazine. She can be reached at kristuinstra@yahoo.com.

Tisa Vorce, master’s ’00 (Health Communications), is now directing the Asthma Communication Network for the American Lung Association. She can be reached at tvorce@msu.edu.

Randy Yeip, master’s ’02 (Journalism), serves as art director for this issue of EJ magazine. He is finishing his master’s degree with a professional project redesigning the Hillsdale (Mich.) Daily News and recently started his own print design consulting business, Raydar Media.