Faculty Member
Al Cross
College: College of Communications & Information Studies and Institute for Rural Journalism
Department: Journalism
Designation: Assistant Professor and Director
Research: Journalism and Communication; topics include, environment, energy, land-use planning
Courses: JOU 497, Special Topics in Journalism
Collaborative activities: Co-sponsored "Covering Coal and our Energy Future in Rural America" seminar with Society of Environmental Journalists, Virginia Tech and Yale Project on Climate ChangeYale Forum on Climate Change & Media, Roanoke, Oct. 2008; Supervised internship for University of Alabama master's student in community journalism, in which she wrote stories about mountaintop removal mining, June 2007 (stories were published in Appalachian coalfield newspapers)
Held "Coal-Media Roundtable" for Appalachian coalfield journalists and coal-industry representatives and suppliers, with help of Appalachian News-Express and Kentucky Coal Association, Pikeville, April 2006
Held "Covering Coal" seminar for journalists with help of Marshall University, West Virginia University, Wheeling Jesuit University, Virginia Tech, U.S. Office of Surface Mining, Kentucky and West Virginia state agencies, Stagg Resource Consultants, West Virginia Coal Association, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and Appalachian Citizens Law Center, South Charleston, W.Va., Nov. 2005
Current activities: The Rural Blog, http://irjci.blogspot.com; Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues Web site, www.RuralJournalism.org
Current funding: Faculty line and earnings on endowment funded by private donations
Expertise: Translation of environmental issues and research into journalism to facilitate public understanding and public-policy debates. Environment is one of the four main issue areas of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, part of the School of Journalism and Telecommunications in the College of Communications and Information Studies. The Institute is not primarily a journalism craft program; it is a public-policy center for rural journalists and their communities. Because extractive industries do almost all their extracting in rural communities, their economic and environmental impacts are overwhelmingly rural. However, rural news outlets usually lack the staff, time, space and expertise to explore these impacts. That is what we help them do, through resources on our Web site, www.RuralJournalism.org; The Rural Blog, our daily digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism in rural America; holding conferences, such as the two we have done on coal in Appalachia, and co-sponsoring conferences, such as "Covering Coal and our Energy Future in Rural America" with the Society of Environmental Journalists. At that conference we also hosted a session on environmental impacts of agriculture.
Industrial contacts: Kentucky Resources Council, Frankfort; Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation, Louisville; Kentucky Coal Association, Lexington; West Virginia Coal Association, Charleston; Stagg Resource Consultants, Cross Lanes. W. Va.; Coal River Mountain Watch, Whitesville, W. Va.; Powell River Project, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.; Coal Impoundment Project, Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, W. Va.; Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, Berea, Ky.; Center for Rural Strategies, Whitesburg, Ky.; Agee Films, Charlottesville, Va.
Keywords: coal, mountaintop, mining, water, oil, gas, timber, agriculture, communications, journalism, newspapers, broadcasting, policy
Location: 122 Grehan Journalism Building 40506-0042
Phone: (859) 257-3744
Fax: (859) 323-3168
Email address: al.cross@uky.edu
Web site: http://www.ruraljournalism.org/
