Contact: Jim Detjen, Journalism, (517) 353-9479, Detjen@msu.edu; Dave Poulson, Journalism, (517) 432-5417, Poulson@msu.edu; or Russ White, University Relations, (517) 432-0923, whiterus@msu.edu

6/7/2005

EAST LANSING, Mich. – This year’s Great Lakes Environmental Journalism Institute, which starts today, comes at the 10-year anniversary for the organizing body – the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University.

During the 10 years that professor Jim Detjen has held the Knight Chair at MSU, the environmental journalism program has organized seven institutes for Canadian and American journalists, each with a different environmental focus. The Knight center will hold its eighth institute for 25 American and Canadian journalists today through June 11 at the Kellogg Center on the MSU campus and in Ontario, Canada. This year’s keynote speaker is Margaret Kriz, who covers energy and environmental issues for the National Journal based in Washington, D.C.

“This year’s program is unique because we are celebrating 10 years of environmental journalism education and outreach with this exciting group of 25 journalists from around the Great Lakes. This year for the first time we will fly the journalists up to the boreal forest of Canada to learn more about this unique ecosystem and the vital role that it plays in the global environment,” Detjen said.

The 25 journalists selected for this year’s institute work at newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations. Seven are Canadians and 18 are American. The institute is funded through grants from the George Gund Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Canadian Forest Service.

The institute is being organized by Dave Poulson, assistant director of the Knight Center; Detjen; and Barb Miller, Knight Center secretary.

Since 1996 the Knight Center has trained about 200 American and Canadian journalists at its weeklong training institutes on Great Lakes’ environmental issues. It has also helped organize international workshops on environmental journalism in Mexico, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, South Africa, Russia, China, South Korea, Egypt, Ukraine, Hungary, Portugal, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and other countries.

Besides organizing multiple workshops, the faculty and staff of the Knight Center also publish an award-winning magazine, EJ; operate three computer listservs for environmental journalists; offer a variety of courses on environmental journalism at MSU; conduct research; maintain the Edward Meeman Archives of environmental journalism; and assist in the development of environmental journalism worldwide. The Knight Center also helped write the first ethics code for international environmental journalists and hosted the national conference of the U.S. Society of Environmental Journalists in 2000.

But the celebration doesn’t end there. The center this year received a total of more than $4 million over the next five years to expand its educational, training and research efforts.

Under the grant, the journalism program will, in part:

• Create an environmental specialization in the journalism school’s master’s degree program. This specialization will include courses in environmental science and policy, a required internship and a strong ethics component.
  
  
• Set up an institute offering weeklong training for environmental journalists. This “boot camp” will be modeled on the successful Great Lakes Environmental Journalism Training Institutes the Knight Center has organized since 1996, but will be national in scope.
  
  
• Organize international workshops for training journalists about environmental reporting. The Knight Center will partner with other institutions to set up these institutes, which will likely be held in China and Latin America. These international workshops will be patterned after the successful conference for Mexican environmental journalists the Knight Center hosted in Mexico City in January 2004.

MSU’s School of Journalism received $2.2 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to expand the educational, training and research efforts of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism over the next five years.

The grant, the largest in the 90-year history of the MSU journalism school, will enable the center to significantly expand its programs. Since MSU has also pledged to contribute the equivalent of another $2 million to support the Knight Center’s programs, the actual value of this grant is more than $4 million.

“Our center will be able to dramatically increase its outreach and training efforts to journalists around the world,” said Detjen.

Knight Foundation has now given nearly $4 million to support MSU’s environmental journalism program. Funding began with a $1 million award in 1992 to establish a Knight Chair in Journalism with a specific focus on environmental journalism. After a nationwide search the MSU School of Journalism hired Detjen, an award-winning reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer and the founding president of the Society of Environmental Journalists. In January 1995, Detjen began teaching at MSU.

Since 1990, the foundation has established 18 Knight Chairs in Journalism at major U.S. colleges and universities, investing $27 million in the program. Knight Chairs are classroom innovators, catalysts for new university programs and accomplished journalists who hope to improve their profession nationally.

“The story of our environment may well be the most important story of the coming century,” said Eric Newton, director of Journalism Initiatives at Knight Foundation. “Jim Detjen and the Knight Center will help thousands of journalists at home and abroad better tell that story.”

The Knight grant consists of $2 million for expanded programs and a $200,000 “challenge grant” to help the Knight Center build an endowment for its activities. To qualify for the additional endowment money, the Knight Center will have to raise $600,000 in contributions by 2011.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities. Since it was established in 1950, Knight Foundation has approved more than $250 million in journalism grants. Learn more online at www.knightfdn.org/journalism

The MSU School of Journalism is one of the oldest, largest and most highly regarded journalism programs in the nation. The first journalism course was taught at MSU in 1910, and since 1949 the journalism school has been continuously reaccredited. MSU’s School of Journalism is part of the College of Communication Arts & Sciences, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. More information about the college and School of Journalism is available at www.cas.msu.edu. For details about the institute and the MSU Knight Center, go online to www.environmental.jrn.msu.edu