Breaking News! (from the Earth)

Although there have been many long-running environmental publications, more and more college campuses continue to create their own publications that focus on green and sustainability issues. Yale University began this year with their environmental publication, Yale Environment 360. Other colleges, such Michigan State with their EJ Magazine, have published campus environmental magazines for years.

Honestly, it’s hard to beat good journalism.

What these campus magazines do is promote honest environmental journalism, one of the fastest growing types of journalism today. I can’t think of a better way to expose students to real environmental issues – doing the research and writing the article themselves. Sure, it’s one thing to encourage students to read The Ecologist and other magazines available at the campus library, but to have a publication written by students for students is another thing altogether.

Many of these colleges include their environmental magazines as part of their journalism or environmental studies major. Right now, Washington College has many, many publications, both student and faculty-run. But what I would love to see is an interdepartmental cooperative which focuses on responsible environmental journalism. It’s very important for every major to know how to write well, not just know how to write. If an environmental magazine could be integrated into a class, a major, or multiple majors, students would automatically associate those majors with writing (which should be every major, really).

So, what would we call our environmental magazine? Who would write for it? What would they write about?

Answer: The students decide.