Environmental groups and their members can get a daily dose of Michigan's environmental news delivered free to their computer desktops, web sites or e-mailboxes.
Michigan's Echo summarizes environmental news reported by more than 35 daily newspapers. Each summary links to the full version of every story.

The Mackinac Chapter of the Sierra Club launched an e-mail version of Echo in 2001. As the effort developed, students at Michigan State University's Knight Center for Environmental Journalism were employed to scan the web for environmental news.

Last fall, with support from the Michigan Environmental Council, the Knight Center took over responsibility for the service. The MSU organization advocates for environmental journalism and teaches student and professional journalists how to better cover environmental issues.

Recently, the center launched significant enhancements to the service that's read by environmentalists, scientists, farmers, regulators, business operators and politicians.

Now users can search previous news digests and control the kinds of news they receive. The stories are sorted into more than 30 categories and by five regions of the state.

"If you only want to read about water quality issues in Southeast Michigan or about mining in Northern Michigan, you can," said Dave Poulson, associate director of the Knight Center. "Or perhaps a group wants a range of environmental news but just from the region it serves. By tailoring it to your interests, Echo provides news you can use in an innovative way."

For information on this free service, visit ej.msu.edu/news.php or e-mail Poulson at poulson@msu.edu.