Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/dave/page/37/)
If you’re following Echo on Twitter, make sure that you’re following the GreatLakesEcho username and not GreatLakes_Echo. You caught the difference, right? The second has that little underscore between Lakes and Echo. Both usernames exist, but Echo will concentrate fresh tweets on GreatLakesEcho — the one without the underscore. The one with the annoying little line will soon go away.
By David Poulson
Echo readers may be interested in the just-launched Michigan River News. We are. Like Echo, Michigan River News defines its news community by natural features rather than political boundaries. It’s a great experiment in environmental journalism. The two founders are former Echo writers and graduates of the masters program here at Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.
Echo readers were paid an indirect compliment this week. Two separate agencies contacted us about running advertising on our pages. That seems to imply you’re a demographic worth courting. But what does it mean to us? We’re a non-profit operation, but that doesn’t mean we’re not in need of revenue.
At 8 p.m. this Tuesday (May 24), WKAR public television will broadcast Bad Company, a one-hour documentary that looks at how human-driven influences have altered the environment of the Great Lakes. Check your local listings. The project represents over a year’s work of effort by Lou D’Aria and many of his students enrolled in his video production classes at Michigan State University. D’Aria is a faculty member associated with the university’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, the same unit that produces Great Lakes Echo. The documentary will be offered to all PBS stations in the Great Lakes region.
Although I get to be the editor here at Great Lakes Echo, my day job is the associate director at Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. Echo is among many of the duties I juggle. Another is figuring out ways to help professional journalists/reporters/writers/broadcasters/bloggers/freelancers/communicators better report on the environment. To that end, the Knight Center is involved in a National Science Foundation effort to improve literacy about climate change. We’re part of a regional effort to build and support a network of formal and informal climate change educators.
I suspect that the whole “knee bone connected to the thigh bone” aspect of environmental issues is what fascinates scientists and journalists alike. Frustrates them both, too. Nowadays it borders on cliche to note the complex interrelationships that make up an ecosystem. Pull a thread on one corner of an ecosystem – an invasive species introduction, for example – and the consequences elsewhere are surprising, fascinating and oftentimes troubling. That’s true of a common summer environmental story – the inevitable closing of beaches due to bacterial contamination. It’s a good story for a journalist – human health, economic impact, political posturing.
Echo commentator Gary Wilson’s take on Wisconsin environmental rollbacks picked up some attention from Changing Gears: Remaking the Manufacturing Belt. That’s a project using journalism and public engagement to look at the future of the industrial Midwest. It turns out that Gary’s got a pretty good radio voice. Hear him elaborate on his Echo column.
Check out these two stories that appeared on Echo recently. One is this piece by Gary Wilson about privatizing public water service in Chicago. The other is this piece by Kari Lydersen about the Kennecott mine proposal in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. They don’t appear to have much in common. One is commentary on a big city urban issue.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had an interesting take last week on a Feb. 3 report out of the International Upper Great Lakes Study board. The news story questioned whether the report provided an unbiased view, and quoted one person confused over whether the information represented a “straight-up” news piece. You can read reporter Dan Egan’s take here. Echo reporter Jeff Gillies, who had referenced the IJC report in a post the day before, disagreed with that assessment.