Environmental journalists migrate to Madison

Environmental journalists from around the country will flock to Madison and Wisconsin this week as the 19th annual Conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) gets under way Wednesday, Oct. 7, at the Concourse Hotel.

The conference, hosted by the University of Wisconsin–Madison, will feature a keynote address by former Vice President Al Gore, as well as talks by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Jane Lubchenco.

The conference runs through Oct. 11 and features tours of iconic Wisconsin features and institutions such as the International Crane Foundation, Horicon Marsh, the lower Wisconsin River, the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory and the National Wildlife Health Center. The meeting is expected to draw as many as 500 journalists from around the country, including representatives from National Geographic, Animal Planet, Chemical & Engineering News, the Washington Post, the New York Times, USA Today and Business Week, among others.

Established in 1990, SEJ has a membership of more than 1,500 journalists and academics working in every type of news media in the United States, Canada, Mexico and 27 other countries.

Numerous UW–Madison faculty and staff have been invited to speak or otherwise participate in the meeting, which is open only to registrants. Information about the conference and SEJ can be found at http://www.sej.org/.