University graduate, adjunct instructor, and long time Advocate reporter Mike Dunne died Sunday after complications from cancer. He was 58.
Dunne graduated from the University’s Journalism School in 1974 with a degree in broadcast journalism.
According to the Associated Press, he went on to work for the Alabama Journal until returning to Baton Rouge to work at the State-Times. After reporting and editing for the State-Times, he was hired by The Morning Advocate as a general assignment reporter in the early 1980s. Dunne also worked for three years as an investigative reporter for WBRZ before returning to the Advocate in 1993.
“He was an excellent writer,” said Dean Jack Hamilton of the Manship School of Mass Communications. “I know personally that the people he covered, on all sides, felt he was a fair and balanced reporter.”
Hamilton said he thought Dunne’s sense of fairness was a particularly important trait for a reporter covering the environment where “emotions run high.”
Hamilton said he first met Dunne 15 years ago when he served as an adjunct instructor in the Manship School beginning in 1992. Dunne taught media writing off and on for many semesters until late 2005.
“He did a lot for out students,” Hamilton said.
During his career, Dunne received many awards for his work as a journalist. He was recognized especially for his environmental reporting of Louisiana’s wetlands.
In 2000, Dunne was recognized with the Scripps Howard Foundation’s Edward J. Meeman Award for his exposure of the government failures to preserve coastal land.
In 2005, Dunne authored America’s Wetland: Louisiana’s Vanishing Coast with photographer Bevil Knapp. The book matches disturbing images of the wetlands’ decline with insightful commentary by Dunne. The book was published by the University’s press.
In May, America’s Wetland Foundation awarded Dunne the first ever Conservationist of the Year Award for his work as a reporter and author.
Mass communication professor Jay Perkins said “[Dunne] was a far better reporter than writer,” adding that Dunne also had the unique ability of turning complex matters into something others could understand.
Perkins said he knew Dunne for more than 15 years, beginning when he met Dunne as a contact at the Advocate.
Perkins attributed Dunne’s interest and success in reporting on the environment to his love of talking to the scientific community.
Perkins said he and Dunne were both diagnosed with the same type of cancer and talked about treatments with each other.
“He was a hell of a guy,” Perkins said. “I’m sorry to see him go.”
——-Contact Mark Macmurdo at [email protected]