I am a huge fan of NBC Nightly News, as you may tell from my many references to Brian William’s different approach to the anchor’s role.

So it was great to meet Anne Thompson last week, as she covered ASU on her new environment beat. What’s an environmental beat? It’s intersting how until about six months ago, there were only three pillars to this category: Going Green, Climate Change, and Al Gore.

Anne does not frame it in the limited ‘climate change’ box as so many conveniently do, and was excited to hear how sustainability (the fourth part in this category) is such a hot (or is it cool?) major here. She was not interested in the hit-and-run questions that, say, Fox would go after (You know: “New at six, why some college students are not recycling their plastic bottles and pizza boxes…“) but the deep ones about what it means to a desert state, and what kind of new “scientists” are coming through the system to meet the sustainability challenges.

Appropriately, some of the interviews were at the Decision Theater, not just a backdrop to the topic, but a place where we confront these issues, as part of the Global Institute of Sustainability.

Stay tuned!