Jena Brooker (BA '19)
Becoming a journalist wasn’t always the plan for Jena Brooker (BA ’19), the environment and food reporter for BridgeDetroit. Moving to Detroit after graduation, her first job was as a substitute teacher. When COVID hit and teaching moved online, she pursued freelance writing. By the following spring, Brooker was named the first Midwest fellow for Grist.
“I grew as a journalist during that time and was responsible for covering environmental issues in the region and reporting on everything from climate change and culture to environmental justice and agriculture,” says Brooker, who graduated from the Program in the Environment (PitE).
Brooker, who has been published in The Guardian, Salon, Slate and Mother Jones, is widely recognized for her work. This year, she received a Michigan Press Association award for a story about air pollution from the Detroit Stellantis plant, was named a Young Journalist of the Year by the Society of Professional Journalists Detroit, and received a National Press Foundation grant for environmental justice reporting.
Brooker says her experiences at U-M—including an environmental health journalism class she took as a PitE student and managing the U-M Campus Farm—inspired her.
“What I learned resonated with my skill set and interests, and when I started writing, I realized that having an interdisciplinary background from U-M was better than having a journalism degree in many ways. Local food is so important to me, so that’s a frequent topic and also the focus of my side hustle making ice pops using locally sourced fruit,” says Brooker, who, during the summer, sells JB’s Ice Pops at stores and events.
