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
3/24/2005
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| Jim Detjen |
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 Jim Detjen, director of the Knight Center.
The funds will make it possible to set up a national �boot camp� for environmental journalists, expand international activities, develop online courses for reporters around the globe and create a specialization in environmental journalism in the master�s degree program.
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| Dave Poulson |
MSU officials have pledged to make permanent the position of assistant director of the Knight Center, held by Dave Poulson, an award-winning environmental journalist for Booth Newspapers hired in January 2003. They also have committed to hiring an adjunct instructor to teach a course in environmental journalism for broadcasting students, to provide for additional technology and to make available space for the expanded Knight Center programs.
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.
Under the Knight grant, the journalism 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.
During the 10 years that Detjen has held the Knight Chair at MSU, the environmental journalism program has been involved in many activities, including seven Great Lakes Environmental Journalism Training Institutes for Canadian and American journalists. The program will hold its eighth institute June 7-11 at the Kellogg Center on the MSU campus and in Ontario, Canada.
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. Its undergraduate program was ranked 9th best in the United States in the 1998 edition of the Gourman Report, a respected rater of the nation's educational programs.
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