08/20/2006

Program aims to get journalists out into environment

Institute focuses on emerging state and national issues

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

TRAVERSE CITY — A dozen journalists from northern Michigan and across the continent gathered recently in Traverse City. Their topic: an impending nine-day tour to study Great Lakes region environmental issues.

The group included a Record-Eagle reporter and other daily newspaper reporters; an Associated Press correspondent; a public radio reporter; a columnist; and an independent documentary filmmaker.

All were chosen as fellows for the Great Waters Institute 2006, a program held by the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources.

The nonprofit organization based in Missoula, Mont., works to pursue higher standards of news coverage through expedition-style programs of professional development. Programs are held across the country, and this year included seminars in the Rocky Mountains and the Great Lakes area.

The Traverse City-based program kicked off in late July, and focused on current and emerging environmental issues: coal-fired energy production, airborne pollution, water quality, invasive species, fisheries management, sulfide mining and wildfire ecology.

Expedition leader Peter Annin spent 11 years reporting for Newsweek. He developed an expertise in environmental journalism, and also covered domestic terrorism.

Frank Allen is IJNR president and had a 25-year career as a reporter and editor, including 14 years at The Wall Street Journal, where he was the paper's first environmental editor.

He also attended the institute and spoke at the end about the responsibility that faces environmental journalists.

"As journalists, we are all visitors," Allen said. "A good storyteller creates a climate in which wisdom can reveal itself."

The two IJNR staff members said the expeditions are to get journalists — who too often are tied to their desks and telephones — outdoors and into the environment they cover for their readers, viewers and listeners.

The expedition tour bus crisscrossed northern Michigan, went into Wisconsin and then trekked back across the Upper Peninsula.

The next IJNR institute will focus on energy issues and begins in September. It will take another group of reporters through parts of Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.

There are more than 400 lifetime IJNR fellows.

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