Alan Bjerga (born 1973) is an American journalist, author of the book Endless Appetites: How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest. [1] He also covers global food policy for Bloomberg News and is a journalism instructor at Georgetown University, where in 2016 he received a department award for dedication to student learning. [2] In 2010 he served as president of the National Press Club and was president of the North American Agricultural Journalists in 2010-2011. [3]
Bjerga, who grew up on a farm near the town of Motley, Minnesota, [4] went to Concordia College (Minnesota) where he earned a bachelor's degree in history and English literature and edited the student newspaper, The Concordian. He earned a master's degree in mass communication from the University of Minnesota, where he was the managing editor of The Minnesota Daily. In 2012 he was an inaugural winner of the university's award for outstanding journalism alumni under 40, [5] and in 2013 received Concordia College's annual "Sent Forth" award given to an outstanding young alumnus. [6]
Bjerga began his career with the St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minn.) and also reported for the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader and The Wichita Eagle (Kan.). [7]
Alan Bjerga was a contestant on the game show, "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" where he won $50,000. He was a second-place finisher on Jeopardy!' [8] At his National Press Club inaugural on January 30, 2010, he played guitar and sang lead vocals with "Honky Tonk Confidential", a retro/alt country band with songs written by former CBS Face the Nation anchor, Bob Schieffer. [9] He has also competed for the standup comedy title of "DC's Funniest Journalist." [10]
Bjerga has been recognized for his work with awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the New York Press Club, the Kansas Press Association, the North American Agricultural Journalists, and the Overseas Press Club. He has commented on food and agriculture for Bloomberg Television, National Public Radio, the BBC and PBS Newshour, among other programs. Bjerga won the NAAJ's top writing award in 2005 while working for the Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau, where as a Midwest correspondent also covered foreign policy issues including defense contracting and intelligence related to the Iraq war. [11]
Concordia College is a private liberal arts college in Moorhead, Minnesota. Founded by Norwegian settlers in 1891, the school is associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and is unrelated to the Concordia University System operated by the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. Concordia is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and has a total student enrollment of 2,531. It offers Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Music, Master of Education, and Master of Science in nutrition degrees.
The Minnesota Daily is the campus newspaper of the University of Minnesota, published Monday and Thursday while school is in session, and published weekly on Wednesdays during summer sessions. Published since 1900, the paper is currently the largest student-run and student-written newspaper in the United States and the largest paper in the state of Minnesota behind the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The Daily was named best daily college newspaper in the United States in 2009 and 2010 by the Society of Professional Journalists. The paper is independent from the University, but receives $500,000 worth of student service fees funding.
Madhyamam is a Malayalam-language newspaper published in Kerala, India, since 1987. It was founded by Ideal Publications Trust run by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind wing in Kerala. It has nine editions in India and its Persian Gulf edition Gulf Madhyamam has nine in the Middle East.
Tony Burman is a Canadian broadcaster, journalist and university official. Starting in the 1960s, Burman has worked as a journalist, in print, radio, television, and online. For most of this time, he was at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Later he joined Al Jazeera English. He is also active in supporting public broadcasting and investigative journalism.
Truthdig is an American alternative news website that provides a mix of long-form articles, blog items, curated links, interviews, arts criticism, and commentary on current events that is delivered from a politically progressive, left-leaning point of view. The site offers independent journalism and focuses on major "digs" that purport to look beneath headlines to reveal facts overlooked or not reported by mainstream media. Truthdig was co-founded in 2005 by Zuade Kaufman and Robert Scheer, who served as editor-in-chief. As of 2014, the Truthdig site drew more than 400,000 visitors per month.
Alan Schwarz is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and author, formerly at The New York Times, best known for writing more than 100 articles that exposed the National Football League's cover-up of concussions and brought the issue of brain injuries in sports to worldwide attention. His investigative and profile pieces are generally credited with revolutionizing the respect and protocol for concussions in youth and professional athletics. Schwarz's work was profiled in The New Yorker and several films, including the Will Smith movie "Concussion" and the documentaries "Head Games" and PBS Frontline's "League of Denial". The Columbia Journalism Review featured him on the cover of its 2011 Art of Great Reporting issue and wrote of his concussion work, "He put the issue on the agenda of lawmakers, sports leagues, and the media at large — and helped create a new debate about risk and responsibility in sports." The impact of the series was described by Hall of Fame sports writer Murray Chass as "the most remarkable feat in sports journalism history."
Alan Cunningham McIntosh was editor of the Rock County Star-Herald of Luverne, Minnesota. He was president of the Minnesota Newspaper Association in 1949. The association now recognizes individuals who have provided exceptional service to the field of journalism with its Al McIntosh Distinguished Service to Journalism Award.
MinnPost is a nonprofit online newspaper in Minneapolis, founded in 2007, with a focus on Minnesota news.
Eric Dregni is an American author. He is an associate professor of English and Journalism at Concordia University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he teaches writing. He has written or cowritten travel memoirs and essays about Minnesota, Norway, and Italy, as well as guidebooks and books on popular culture in the American Midwest.
HealthNewsReview.org is a web-based project that rates the completeness, accuracy, and balance of news stories that include claims about medical treatments, tests, products and procedures.
Roxana Saberi is an American CBS News correspondent and former Miss North Dakota pageant winner. In 2009, she was held prisoner in Iran's Evin Prison for 101 days under accusations of espionage. She subsequently wrote a book about the experience.
Daniel Zwerdling is an American investigative journalist who has written for major magazines and newspapers. From 1980 to 2018 he served as an investigative reporter for NPR News, with stints as foreign correspondent and host of Weekend All Things Considered from 1993 to 1999. Zwerdling retired from NPR in 2018.
Alison Fitzgerald Kodjak is an American journalist and currently works for the Associated Press as its Washington investigations editor. She previously reported for the AP from 1997 to 2000. She formerly worked for National Public Radio, where she led the science desk, the Center for Public Integrity, and at Bloomberg News for 10 years, and has also worked as a reporter for newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer. She is a two-time winner of the George Polk Award, one of journalism's most prestigious honors.
Alan C. Miller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and the founder of the News Literacy Project, a national education nonprofit that works with educators and journalists to offer resources and tools that help middle school and high school students learn to separate fact from fiction. In 2020, NLP expanded its audience to include people of all ages.
Kouhyar Goudarzi is an Iranian human rights activist, journalist and blogger who was imprisoned several times by the government of Iran. He previously served as an editor of Radio Zamane. He is a member of Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), serving as the head from 2005-2009.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling is a Pulitzer Prize finalist journalist who won the 2011 George Polk award for Local Reporting, and appears on the List of George Polk Award Winners. He is currently a reporter for the Valley News, a daily newspaper in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
Bruce Ingersoll was an American journalist who wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times and The Wall Street Journal.
St. Cloud Times is an American, English language daily newspaper headquartered in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The Times is owned by mass media holding company Gannett and is part of the USA Today network of newspapers. The print version of the paper is printed by ECM Publishers in Princeton, Minnesota.
Craig Silverman is a Canadian journalist and a reporter at ProPublica. He was previously the media editor of BuzzFeed and the head of BuzzFeed's Canadian division. Known as an expert in "fake news", he founded the "Regret the Error" blog in 2004, covering fact-checking and media inaccuracy, and authored a 2009 book of the same name, which won the Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism from the National Press Club.
Jessica Lussenhop is an American investigative journalist whose work has focused on corruption in politics alongside local issues and events. She has also covered major events, such as the Ferguson unrest and controversial murder cases like that of Cornealious Michael Anderson III for the podcast This American Life.
