McElheny Award Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Knight Science Journalism @MIT

by Knight Science Journalism / April 25th 2019 / Announcements, KSJ News & Events

Post and Courier Trio Feted at Inaugural Victor McElheny Award Luncheon

The power of local news was on brilliant display at MIT’s Samberg Conference Center last Wednesday. In a sun-filled room overlooking the Charles River, the Knight Science Journalism Program honored reporters from the Charleston Post and Courier with the inaugural Victor K. McElheny Award for local and regional science journalism.

Tony Bartelme, Chad Dunbar, and Emory Parker were celebrated for their stunning series, “Into the Gulf Stream,” which explored how ocean currents might affect offshore oil exploration off the Carolina coast. And in a rousing keynote speech, Pulitzer Prizewinner and Boston Globe veteran Matt Carroll encouraged the dozens of science journalists in attendance to seize new opportunities to reinvent local news.

Here are some of the highlights from the luncheon ceremony:

Victor McElheny (center), the founding director of the Knight Science Journalism, chats with his wife, Ruth (left) and former KSJ Associate Director David Corcoran (right). All three were recognized during the ceremony for the important roles they played in providing the support and planning to make the journalism award possible. The Victor McElheny Award also received generous support from the Rita Allen Foundation of Princeton, New Jersey.

Matthew Carroll, a journalism professor of practice at Northeastern University, delivered a keynote with a rousing thesis: Despite the shuttering of many local outlets and substantial layoffs at others, the future of local journalism is as bright as ever. He called on young journalists to use their courage and grit to open new local outlets in places lacking coverage. Carroll spent 26 years at The Boston Globe and was a member of the Spotlight team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for its coverage of the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal.

KSJ director Deborah Blum (at podium) applauds McElheny Award winner Chad Dunbar (center), as Associate Director Ashley Smart (right) looks on. Blum lauded Dunbar and his colleagues for a series that weaved together history, science, and culture to give readers both a picture of “the Gulf Stream’s might and its fragility in the face of a changing climate.” She also praised the creativity of a data-driven simulation showing how quickly oil would spread if spilled from offshore drilling operations and an accompanying adult coloring book — “30 Days in the Gulf Stream” — designed by Bartelme and Dunbar.

From left to right, KSJ Director Deborah Blum and Associate Director Ashley Smart present Emory Parker, Chad Dunbar, and Tony Bartelme with the 2019 Victor McElheny Award. In his acceptance speech, Bartelme echoed Carroll’s earlier call to action, saying The Post and Courier regularly “punches above its weight” due in part to the strong backing of an owner who cares deeply about local news. Parker said that it was a welcome and unexpected honor to win a journalism award, as he had begun his career as a research scientist. “It’s hard to state how much this means to us,” he said.

After the ceremony, honorees and guests take in the view from the sun-drenched Samberg Center balcony. The overarching message of the day was an inspiring one: Investigations and compelling narratives have a unique ability to illuminate the ways that science affects people’s everyday lives and communities.

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 / December 1st 2018 / Announcements, KSJ News & Events

Victor K. McElheny Award Now Accepting Entries

The Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT is pleased to announce that we are now accepting submissions for the 2019 Victor K. McElheny Award for local and regional science journalism. The award will recognize one outstanding work of journalism — print, digital, or broadcast — with a $5,000 prize. Submissions will be accepted through January 31, 2019.

The McElheny Award was established to honor outstanding coverage of science, public-health, technology, and environmental issues at the local or regional level. Entries may be standalone works or series, and must have been published during the 2018 calendar year. Emphasis will be put on investigative, community-service, and compelling narrative journalism that breaks new ground and makes a difference. There is no entry fee.

For answers to frequently asked questions, visit our FAQ page. To review the submission guidelines and begin a submission, click here. For more information, contact us at mcelhenyaward@mit.edu.

The Victor K. McElheny award was made possible by the generous support of Victor K. McElheny, the founder of the Knight Science Journalism Program, his wife, Ruth McElheny, and the Rita Allen Foundation.

by KSJ@MIT / September 28th 2018 / Alumni News, Announcements, KSJ News & Events

The Knight Science Journalism Program Celebrates 35 Years

On a crisp autumn evening punctuated by a postcard-worthy sunset, MIT’s Knight Science Journalism Program honored its founder, launched a new science journalism award, and celebrated 35 years as one of journalism’s preeminent fellowship programs.

Some one hundred attendees — including current and former fellows, current director Deborah Blum, and three of the program’s previous directors — mixed and mingled at the Media Lab’s Silverman Skyline Room last Sunday. Victor McElheny, the program’s founder and inaugural director, was the evening’s guest of honor and keynote speaker.

In his remarks, McElheny recounted the program’s origin story, recalling MIT as a natural venue to host “journalists who had grown to love describing technical matters in everyday language and vivid images and sound.” Then as now, McElheny said, the aim was for proven, ambitious science journalists to “spend a year building their skills, contacts, and confidence for a long future of intense, even wild change.”

KSJ founder Victor McElheny. (Photo by Bettina Urcuioli.)

McElheny launched the fellowship program in 1983 — after successfully garnering foundation support — and notably gained a major endowment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Over the three and a half decades of its existence, the Knight Science Journalism Program has hosted more than 300 mid-career science journalists representing nearly 40 countries and six continents.

“The headline tonight is that Victor built something that has lasted — and that’s hard to do,” said MIT Vice President of Communications Nate Nickerson in his introductory remarks.

Also speaking at the event was Paula Apsell, Senior Executive Producer of NOVA and a member of the program’s first fellowship class. She described her fellowship experience as a life-changing one that shaped her science storytelling in the years that followed.

The Knight Science Journalism program continues to flourish in its 35th year, with a class that includes reporters and editors from the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, and other venerable publications. And on Sunday, the program announced a new endeavor: The event marked the launch of the Victor K. McElheny Award, which will honor outstanding coverage of science, public-health, technology, or environmental issues at the local or regional level.

“That future generations will associate the name Victor K. McElheny with excellence in science journalism makes me – and all of MIT – extremely proud,” wrote MIT President Rafael Reif, in a letter presented during the ceremony.

At a time when local journalism—especially local science journalism—is on the wane, McElheny says he hopes the new award will spark renewed focus on front-line discoveries and their impacts on our everyday lives. “We can think of this prize as an encouragement to one of our most precious attributes: curiosity.”

Blum closed the event by asking all fellows, past and present, to stand. She noted how important all of them were in changing and improving the profession of science journalism — and heralded the accomplishments to come. Leading the room in a round of applause, she said to the assembled fellows: “We are so proud of all of you.”