Eric Freedman

Knight Center for Environmental Journalism Chair and Professor Michigan State University

  • East Lansing MI

Eric Freedman teaches environmental journalism and serves as director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.

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Michigan State University

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Biography

Eric Freedman is Professor of Journalism and former Associate Dean of International Studies and Programs. During his 20-year newspaper career, he covered public affairs, environmental issues and legal affairs for newspapers in New York and Michigan, winning a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of a legislative corruption scandal. He teaches environmental journalism and serves as director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. He also teaches public affairs reporting, international journalism and feature writing and serves as director of the school's Capital News Service, a professional-level practicum in which students cover state government for more than 25 newspapers and online news outlets across Michigan. Freedman earned his bachelor's degree in government from Cornell University, his law degree from New York University and his master's degree in resource development from MSU. Internationally, he has taught journalism as a Fulbright scholar in Lithuania, Georgia and Uzbekistan, and given lectures and led workshops and seminars for professional journalists, students and the public in Singapore, Russia, Chile, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Japan, Estonia and Kyrgyzstan.

He served for three years as an International Scholar in the Open Society Foundation's Academic Fellowship Program, where he worked with faculty members in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan.

As a professional journalist and freelancer, Freedman has written for newspapers and magazines on such environmental issues as habitat protection, parks and public lands, toxic substances, extinction, ecotourism and government regulation. At MSU, he directed the Australia Media, Environment, Culture and Tourism study abroad program, the Reporting in the British Isles study abroad program and a freshman seminar abroad on environment and media in Scotland.

His research interests include press systems and journalism practices in the former Soviet Union: environmental journalism practices and challenges; international journalists' professional standards and education; public affairs reporting; news coverage of press and human rights; and U.S. political history.

Industry Expertise

Writing and Editing
Education/Learning
Research
Media - Print

Areas of Expertise

Public Affairs
Journalism Practices
Press Systems
Environmental Journalism

Education

Cornell University

B.A.

Government

1971

New York University

J.D.

Law

1975

Michigan State University

M.S.

Resource Development

2004

News

Journalists face news industry turbulence

Spartan Newsroom  online

2023-09-08

These are tough times for American journalists.

Traditional newspaper, magazine and broadcast station staffs are shrinking. News outlets are cutting back on coverage, merging companies or – most drastically – folding. Nonprofit start-ups are emerging and doing high-quality journalism but often struggle financially.

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Commentary: Lessons from the brink

Spartan Newsroom  online

2023-08-08

There’s nothing like almost dying to wake you up to the multiple realities of America’s health care system.

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OPINION: Mass shooting coverage shows crucial role of student journalists

Midland Daily News  online

2023-03-06

When the horrendous shooting occurred on the Michigan State University campus, student journalists rushed in to cover the tragedy, its impact on the university and community, the investigation and university security.

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Journal Articles

What Do They Say? Authors of Articles in Predatory Journalism and Mass Communication Journals Speak

Journal of Scholarly Publishing

2023

Journalism and mass communication (J&MC) research examines crucial issues in democratic and undemocratic societies, such as freedom of expression, misinformation and disinformation, government regulation of communications, defamation and invasion of privacy, media technologies and economics, and journalists’ professional practices. Unethical scholarship practices may weaken societal and public policy goals of fair, independent, and accurate reporting and transparent governance.

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Predatory Journals in Journalism and Mass Communication: A Case Study of Deceptions

Journal of Scholarly Publishing

2022

Predatory publishing is an increasingly difficult challenge to ignore because it threatens the integrity of research literature and scholarship. Still, this scholarly area is largely overlooked in journalism and media communications (J&MC) literature.

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Preserving endangered species

Communicating Endangered Species

2021

The battle to protect endangered species and to rebuild their populations to sustainable levels is being fought on many levels, and communication about those efforts can bring science to the attention of policy makers and the citizenry, helping to set the agenda for discourse, action, and decision-making.

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