Fishing for solutions

Environmental reporter Mark Schleifstein entered our Journalism class in 1st floor Bunnell building March 28, wearing festive purple Mardi Gras beads, and a smile that seemed to cheer up the room. A the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Schleifstein radiated confidence and thorough enjoyment about his work.

In Schleifstein’s eyes, journalistic writing has to come second nature for you to be a good reporter. “You have to do everything” says Schleifstein. You have to learn as much as you can about everything so that when the time comes you know what questions to ask to get the answers you want. That comes with practice and experience Schleifstein says. A reporter should try to find the answers first so you know what you are looking for. As he did with the story that he presented us.

Schleifstein lived for many years around the Louisiana area and convinced his publisher to give him a team so they could write about the fisheries. The publisher gave in, and what was going to be about a month beat became a year-and-a-half project.

Schleifstein presented the students of the class with a slide show of his reporting with fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi river and about the environmental problems they were having. There had been a large decrease in the wetlands of Louisiana, before Hurricane Katrina, that was greatly affecting the fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi river.

Much like Alaska has been experiencing over the past few years, Louisiana has been experiencing with over-fishing. Schleifstein said he went to a restaurant here in Alaska and ordered shrimp. He asked where they were from, and he was surprised to hear that the prawns he ordered were all the way from India.

The comparison between the two is quite similar, and the local fisherman noticed this and said that they would be fine. But when Schleifstein contributed the thought of the wetlands disappearing, they predicted no fish if that were to happen. Their fishing regulations were tightened down, much like Alaska’s, which seemed help, but also anger the fisherman as strict rules usually do. The shrimp fisherman were set with new regulations which made them fix their shrimp pots to let the trapped turtles get free. As if this wasn’t enough of a big inconvenience for the fishermen, once they realized that they were catching a ridiculous amount of premature fish, they were instructed to put in byfish holes as well.

Schleifstein and his crew reported on this for a year and a half, and it ended up being an amazing story.

“Every story is interesting” he says of his environmental reporting. “It is fun to do and it meant something to the people.
--Becca Wilson