journalism awards Archives - Knight Science Journalism @MIT

by Knight Science Journalism / December 13th 2022 / Announcements

The Victor K. McElheny Award is Now Accepting Submissions

The Knight Science Journalism program at MIT is pleased to announce that the 2023 Victor K. McElheny Award is accepting nominations now through January 31, 2023. The award recognizes outstanding coverage of science, public health, technology, or the environment at the local or regional level. The winning journalist or team of journalists will be presented with a $10,000 prize.

The Victor K. McElheny Award was established in 2018 by the Knight Science Journalism program’s founding directory and storied science journalist Victor McElheny and his wife Ruth McElheny as a way to recognize and reward the critical but under-appreciated work being done by science journalists on a local level. According to McElheny, “the prize can help illustrate a continuing contribution to the maximum level of public understanding of what technology and science are achieving, and what these achievements imply for humanity.”

Recent winners include “Black Snow” by Lulu Ramadan, Ash Ngu, Maya Miller, Nadia Sussman, and Hannah Morse of the Palm Beach Post and ProPublica, and “Timber Wars” by Ed Jahn, Aaron Scott, David Steves, Peter Frick-Wright, Robbie Carver, and Laura Gibson of Oregon Public Broadcasting.

The award defines “local and regional” widely. Science stories from newspapers, small magazines and digital sites, broadcasters, podcasters, and even bloggers are eligible — as long as the platform’s primary mission is to serve a local or regional audience. Stories produced by a local or regional outlet in collaboration with a national outlet are also eligible, provided the local or regional media outlet can demonstrate a significant contribution to the work, and the story had a local or regional focus. Submissions must have been published during the calendar year 2022.

The winning journalist or team of journalists will be invited to attend an award ceremony in Cambridge MA, held in conjunction with the Knight Science Journalism’s 40th anniversary celebration, on April 22, 2023. For more information please visit the Victor K. McElheny Award page.

by Knight Science Journalism / March 15th 2019 / Announcements, KSJ News & Events

Gulf Stream Series Wins Knight Science Journalism’s Victor K. McElheny Award

The judges recognized local and regional science reporting by the Charleston Post and Courier, the Seattle Times, and the Tampa Bay Times.

The Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT is pleased to announce that the inaugural Victor K. McElheny Award for local and regional science journalism will go to a team of reporters from the Charleston Post and Courier, for an investigative series that shed light on a little-known impact of climate change and an overlooked risk of offshore drilling in the eastern U.S.

The series featured a captivating piece by Tony Bartelme that took readers “into” the Gulf Stream, the powerful system of currents that carries warm tropical water up the U.S. East Coast to the Arctic. Weaving the story of a 1969 submarine expedition with the more recent story of an unexpected Gulf Stream slowdown, Bartelme expertly conveyed both the current’s might and its fragility in the face of climate change. In a data-driven companion piece, Bartelme and Emory Parker used more than 1000 simulations to paint a startling picture of how the Gulf Stream could complicate efforts to contain spills from offshore drilling operations — a salient concern now that some lawmakers are pushing to open the East Coast to drilling. And in a mark of the team’s innovative approach to audience engagement, the series included an adult coloring book: “30 Days in the Gulf Stream,” designed by Bartelme and Chad Dunbar.

“It was really well done and creative — an unexpected story told with great storytelling technique,” remarked a member of the judging panel. “The topic was fresh, and it had real impact.” National environmental groups described the team’s work as “stunning,” and the series helped energize the drilling debate ahead of South Carolina’s 2018 elections.

In addition to the Post and Courier series, judges honored two other outstanding entries as finalists: The Seattle Times series Hostile Waters, a gut-wrenching story of how hunting, pollution, and other human activities have caused the population of Southern Resident Orcas in Puget Sound to dwindle toward extinction; and The Last Grove, a Tampa Bay Times feature that recounts the closing of Hillsborough County’s last commercial orange grove, a victim of Florida’s citrus greening epidemic. The three honorees rose to the top of a competitive field that included more than 100 entries from newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters across the U.S.

Named after the Knight Science Journalism Program’s founding director, the Victor K. McElheny Award was established to honor outstanding coverage of science, public-health, technology, and environmental issues at the local and regional level. “The local newspaper and radio station are where many people get the news that matters to them the most, and sadly, a lot of good science reporting at these outlets goes unnoticed,” said Deborah Blum, Director of the Knight Science Journalism Program. “So it was really encouraging to see the quality, breadth, and depth of science coverage in this year’s entries — and to see that these stories are having real impacts in their communities.”

The winning team from the Post and Courier will be honored at a luncheon ceremony at MIT’s Samberg Center on Wednesday, April 17.

The honorees:

Winner
Charleston Post and Courier
(Tony Bartelme, Chad Dunbar, and J. Emory Parker)
“A powerful current just miles from SC is changing. It could devastate the East Coast.”
“If oil spilled off SC’s coast, a huge current would make it ‘impossible to control’”
“A massive current off Charleston’s coast is changing”

Finalists
Seattle Times
(Lynda V. Mapes, Steve Ringman, Emily Eng, Lauren Frohne, and Ramon Dompor)
“Hostile Waters”
“The orca and the orca catcher: How a generation of killer whales was taken from Puget Sound”
“To catch an orca”

Tampa Bay Times
(Lisa Gartner)
“Florida scientists are working to solve greening. They were too late for Cee Bee’s.”

The McElheny Award is made possible by generous support from Victor K. McElheny, Ruth McElheny, and the Rita Allen Foundation. The Knight Science Journalism Program extends special thanks to the award’s judges and screeners: Brian Bergstein (Freelance journalist), Magnus Bjerg (TV 2, Denmark), Alicia Chang (Associated Press), Jason Dearen (Associated Press), Lisa De Bode (Freelance journalist), Gideon Gil (STAT), Elana Gordon (WHYY), and Barbara Moran (WBUR).

by KSJ@MIT / February 2nd 2018 / KSJ News & Events

The Envelope, Please: Teresa Carr Is an Ellie Finalist

Teresa Carr (2017-18), an award-winning investigative reporter for Consumer Reports, is up for one of journalism’s highest honors — a National Magazine Award, affectionately known as the Ellie.

Teresa’s September 2017 article “Too Many Meds? America’s Love Affair With Prescription Medication,” is one of five finalists in the personal service category, for magazine journalism that serves readers’ needs and aspirations.

Like its author, the article gets straight to the point. “If you’re like most Americans, you probably start your day with a hot shower, a cup of coffee — and a handful of pills,” it begins, adding: “It turns out Americans take more pills today than at any other time in recent history — and far more than people in any other country.

“Much of that medication use is lifesaving or at least life-improving. But a lot is not.”

“Too Many Meds?” goes on to answer its own question. Almost 1.3 million people went to U.S. emergency rooms in 2014 because of adverse drug effects; 124,000 people died. And an estimated $200 billion a year is spent on unnecessary and improper use of medication.

What to do about it? The article praises the work of “slow medicine” practitioners like Dr. Victoria Sweet, who says that before reflexively scribbling a prescription, physicians need to take time “to get to the bottom of what’s making people sick — including medications in some cases — and [give] the body a chance to heal.” And it offers a common-sense list of steps patients can take to get control over what they’re putting into their bodies.

Winners of the Ellies — so named for the elephant-shaped statue they receive — will be announced by the American Society of Magazine Editors on March 13.