Lene Johansen Named CEI Journalism Fellow

Washington D.C., November 5, 2007—The Competitive Enterprise Institute is proud to welcome Lene Johansen as its newest Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow. While at CEI Johansen’s work will focus on the intersection of science, business and public policy, particularly issues related to biotechnology and climate change. She is currently at work on a book about the human cost of regulating biotech foods.

Johansen has long been an active contributor to public policy debate in her native Norway on issues ranging from free speech to globalization. Her reporting in the U.S. has been published by the St. Louis Business Journal, Columbia Business Times and the NPR network in Missouri. Johansen was a finalist in the 2004-2005 Felix Morley Journalism Competition at the Institute for Humane Studies. The competition honors young writers whose work demonstrates an appreciation of classical liberal principles.

Johansen holds a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from the University of Oslo, Norway and will soon receive her M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri. She has worked for Oslo-based media and is also is a founding partner of the Swedish think tank Eudoxa.

The fellowship was created in 1993 to honor the memory of the late journalist Warren T. Brookes, a writer for the Boston Herald and Detroit News and a nationally syndicated columnist. Brookes, in the words of Thomas Bray of the Detroit News, "made a virtual career out of questioning the conventional wisdoms of the so-called experts." After Brookes’ death in 1991, CEI established the Warren T. Brookes Fellowship to keep his legacy alive.

Previous Brookes fellows have included Ronald Bailey, author of Liberation Biology (Prometheus, 2005); Jesse Walker, managing editor of Reason magazine; Hugo Gurdon, editor in chief of The Hill; John Berlau, author of the book Eco-Freaks (Nelson Current, 2006); and Timothy Carney, senior reporter for the Evans-Novak Political Report.

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. For more information about CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.