A Journey into the Meeman Archive

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A Journey into the Meeman Archive

• The Knight Center for Environmental Journalism
• Presented by Hannah M. Northey

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Meeman The Conservationist Setting a Standard
Excellence

• Meeman was a conservationist and an outdoorsman
  who used his journalistic talents to preserve
  natural resources and improve the world for
  generations to come.
• The trails he blazed have left a legacy of great
  environmental journalism and a new standard of
  excellence

Edward J. Meeman
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Meeman The Conservationist Setting a Standard
Excellence

• Managing Editor of the Evansville Press in
  Indiana
• Chosen by Robert Scripps in 1921 to start a
  newspaper in Knoxville, Tenn., which eventually
  became the Knoxville News-Sentinel
• In 1949, Meeman established the Edward J. Meeman
  Foundation, which is a source of support for
  environmental journalism to this day

Edward J. Meeman
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Meeman The Conservationist Setting a Standard
Excellence

• Meeman was instrumental in the struggle to bring
  the Tennessee Valley Authority power to Memphis
  in the early 1930s
• For more than eight years before the TVA was
  established, Meeman had campaigned through his
  newspaper for flood and erosion control and
  public power development on the Tennessee River
  through the construction of a dam on Cove Creek,
  later the site of the TVAs Norris Dam.

Norris Dam in Tennessee
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Meeman The Conservationist Setting a Standard
Excellence

• He crusaded for
• the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountain
  National Park

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Meeman The Conservationist Setting a Standard
Excellence

• In 1949, he established the Edward J. Meeman
  Foundation, which has made major contributions to
  the University of Tennessee and Memphis State
  University to encourage journalism education
• The foundation donated land to the University of
  Memphis in the 1970s, which now hosts the Edward
  J. Meeman Biological Station

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Meeman The Conservationist Setting a Standard
Excellence

• The Edward J. Meeman Biological Station, 25 miles
  north of Memphis, aims to teach biological
  phenomena with special emphasis on ecology and
  evolution using a hands-on, inquiry-based
  learning method.

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Meeman The Conservationist Setting a Standard
Excellence

• Meeman gave up his duties as editor of the
  Press-Scimitar in 1962, becoming editor emeritus,
  as well as his Scripps-Howard position as
  conservation editor.
• In 1966, Meeman died of a heart attack at the age
  of 77.

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• The Meeman Archive

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The Meeman Archive

• The Meeman Archive was established in 1982 with
  grants from the Scripps Howard Foundation.
• In 1996, the Knight Centers Chair and our
  fearless leader, Jim Detjen, obtained the
  nations finest collection of environmental
  reporting in newspapers for MSU.
• The articles cover pollution of pig farms, the
  development on coasts (including Mark
  Schleifsteins continuing articles on the levee
  system in New Orleans), the environmental impacts
  of methamphetamine labs and the threat of
  invasive species, to name a few.

Jim Detjen
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The Meeman Archive

• In just eight months, the Meeman entries have
  been organized and coded (according to topics
  covered), entered into an electronic database and
  images are presently being taken of the articles
• To date, more than 3,500 descriptions of articles
  have been entered into the database, covering the
  years 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.
• When the database is complete, students and
  researchers will be able to search the database
  quickly to locate the topic-, author-, time- or
  newspaper-specific content they are looking for.
  
• And simply by using the coding system in the
  database, they will be able to obtain the
  original materials within one or two days with
  the help of the Knight Center staff.

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The Meeman Archive

• Graduate assistants are now busy loading images
  of the entries into the database and storing the
  hard copies off-site.

Madison Hall
Yu-Ting Lin
Hannah Northey
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The Meeman Archive

• Why is the database important?
• The Meeman Archive is an incredible tool that
• Records the environmental journalism movement
• Gives students access to great pieces of
  journalism for research and story ideas
• Provides an understanding of where environmental
  journalism is going
• Shows how investigative reporting and good
  writing can lead to changes in policy that
  ultimately better protect the environment

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The Meeman Archives

• The 2005 winner of the Edward J. Meeman award was
  Ken Ward Jr., of West Virginias The Charleston
  Gazette
• A prolific writer and repeated winner of the
  Meeman award, Ward exposed inaccurate permit maps
  and lax government regulations in the application
  of a huge coal company to build a potentially
  dangerous coal storage silo near an elementary
  school.
• The permit was revoked.

Ken Ward Jr.
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The End