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Chriss Swaney
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For immediate release:
March 21, 2006

Carnegie Mellon's Steinbrenner Institute Hosts Media Boot Camp Series To Help Faculty Pitch Stories

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University's Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research (SEER) will host the 2006 Media Boot Camp Series from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 22 in the Singleton Room at Roberts Hall. The Media Boot Camp series is designed to help faculty and researchers better understand the needs of reporters covering science and the environment. The event is open to the public.

Chris Hendrickson, head of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon and faculty director of the Steinbrenner Institute, will be the panel moderator for discussions about how reporters and editors select and cover stories. Panel participants include Juliet Eilperin, national environmental writer for The Washington Post; Jeff Mervis, deputy news editor of Science News; Andrew Wright, senior editor/environment for Engineering News-Record; and Allison Heinrichs, environmental reporter at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

"This is a great way to introduce some of our younger, outstanding faculty to the press, and to help them better disseminate our research to the public," Hendrickson said.

Deb Lange, executive director of SEER, said the Media Boot Camp series is designed to capture the momentum created when more than 300 journalists visited campus during the 2004 National Conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists. The conference featured a variety of ongoing environmental research projects at Carnegie Mellon, including making urban areas better places to live and work.

"The series also gives the university community an opportunity to hear what the news media is covering and thinking about," Lange said.

A fourth Media Boot Camp event, featuring more national environmental and science reporters, is scheduled for September 2006.