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Mark Hallett, senior program officer at the McCormick Tribune Foundation in Chicago, wrote this positive review about the conference.
To see a slideshow of photos taken at the workshop click here.
MSU conference helps Detroit student journalists cover heath and the environment
What are the causes of teen depression? How will global warming affect polar bears and other wildlife? Will the cosmetics you use today make you sick when you get older?
These are some of the questions that more than 200 high school journalists from Detroit explored on Wednesday, Feb. 27 during a day-long conference called “Steroids, Makeup and Polar Bears: Journalism and the Environment.”
The conference took place in the Detroit Zoo, at Woodward Avenue and 10 Mile Road (I-696) in Royal Oak, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The participating students were encouraged to write stories for their high school newspapers about the topics highlighted at the conference.
This conference was supported by grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Other conference co-sponsors include the Detroit Free Press, Ford Motor Company Fund, Detroit Public Schools, Wayne State University, Local 22 of the Newspaper Guild, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association, Barnes & Noble, the Society of Professional Journalists and the MSU School of Journalism. Another key sponsor, the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association, ran the student journalism contest.
Students learnt about how to report about health and environmental subjects by professors at the Michigan State University School of Journalism and journalists from the Detroit Free Press, Metro Times, WDIV Channel 4 TV, WXYZ-TV Channel 7 and other news media. Among the topics that were covered are reporting about cosmetics and health, steroids and sports, global warming and wildlife, teen depression and environmental justice in Detroit.
The students also got a chance to visit exhibits at the zoo, such as the Arctic Ring of Life, which contains polar bears, and Amphibiville, a display on amphibians.
Among the speakers and educators at the conference were Paul Anger, Vice President/News at the Detroit Free Press; Connie Calloway, general superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools; Ron Kagan, executive director of the Detroit Zoological Society; Emilia Askari, Chris Lau and Kirkland Crawford of the Detroit Free Press; Cheryl Pell and Sandra L. Combs of the School of Journalism at MSU; Carolyn Clifford of WXYZ-TV Channel 7 in Detroit; Andrew Humphrey, meteorologist with WDIV Channel 4 TV, Detroit; and Curt Guyette of the Metro Times.
