Your ELi: A Call for sports reporters, science reporters, and just plain reporters

It’s tough getting back to “normal” life after the holidays, and life at ELi is no exception. Nevertheless, I’m proud of what we’ve done for you just since we returned on January 4.

We’ve filled you in on changes at City Council, the possible auction of WKAR-TV’s broadband spectrum, and an important school board meeting dealing with the Red Cedar School question and traffic problems at the middle school. We’ve brought you the scientific reasons for why East Lansing sunrises didn’t get earlier right after the winter solstice and why some local animals were sleeping more. We’ve provided an in-depth interview with our new police chief and details on a local entrepreneur’s plans to construct an “escape room” in downtown EL. We’ve covered the community forum on the Burcham Park solar power project, and given you a thorough explanation of the nonconforming rental controversy, including explaining why it is controversial. Which I’m sure you’ll agree is a lot.

We have no plans to slow down, but a couple of staffing changes have made it harder to cover some areas of news that have traditionally been popular with readers. Our original nature writer, Aron Sousa, is now the Dean of MSU’s College of Human Medicine, and although he has been kind enough to write two articles for us since we came back from break, he’s a busy guy, especially since he is leading the University’s response to the Flint Water Crisis.

We really need a new writer (or two) with knowledge of nature and/or science who can tell our readers about various phenomena in our local natural world, from meteor showers to migrating birds. If you are that person, we’d love to have you join us and report at least two science articles a month; you may pitch us an idea or we may have something in mind. You may donate your talents or choose to be paid (all reporters are given this choice, and some switch their choice depending on the topic). We guarantee you it’s a pretty great feeling to see your stories “live” on the site and know that you’re sharing your knowledge with the community.

We have also temporarily lost Peyton Lombardo, our lead sports reporter, who has chosen (for reasons I can’t imagine) to study in London for a semester rather than staying in town and covering prep sports for ELi. We only cover prep sports, and we are really focused on highlighting the sports and athletes that don’t get a lot of coverage in other local news outlets. If you’ve always dreamed about being a sportswriter, this is your chance! The deal is the same as it is for science writing: you may donate your work or be paid. We’d be looking for at least two articles a month.

If neither sports nor science is your passion, we’d still love to have you report for us regularly or once in a blue  moon—on City business, parks and recreation, local arts and entertainment, local businesses, town/gown relations, things to do outdoors, and more. There’s always something going on, and you may have ideas we would never come up with without you.

Our Publisher Alice Dreger and I are planning an informational meeting very soon that will give potential reporters a chance to meet us and find out about what exactly ELi is about. We will, of course, let you know when that’s happening. In the meantime, if you want to report for us, or at least try reporting for us and see if it’s for you, please contact me at editor_ann@eastlansinginfo.org and we’ll get you started writing about two-toed sloths, three-point shots, or whatever makes your East Lansing world a better place.