S-R Pullman Reporter Named Michigan Fellow

Spokesman-Review reporter Eric Sorensen is one of 12 journalists nationwide to be named a Michigan Journalism Fellow.

They will spend the 1996-97 academic year studying at the University of Michigan. The program is paid for by news organizations, foundations and individuals.

Sorensen plans to research the impact of technology on families, communities and workers.

For six years, Sorensen, 38, has worked in The Spokesman-Review’s Pullman bureau. He covers Washington State University, breaking news and an array of issues, and has followed stories to Russia and rural Mexico.

In 1992, he interrupted an East Coast vacation to cover the Boston funeral of U.S. Marshal William Degan, who died in a gunfight at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

Sorensen was one of 12 journalists who witnessed the execution of child-killer Westley Allan Dodd, writing later that “I felt no urge to cry for him … My 5-year-old son, after all, will have a two-block walk to the school bus next year.”

A New Jersey native, Sorensen wrote for The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass., before moving to the Northwest.

In addition to their son, now 8, Sorensen and his wife, Elizabeth DeWeese, have a 5-year-old daughter. The entire family will spend the school year in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sorensen intends to return to The Spokesman-Review after the fellowship is completed. In the meantime, other reporters will cover issues in the Palouse.

, DataTimes