2001 Science in Society Journalism Awards

Web journalism

Harald Franzen

“The Science of the Silver Bullet”

Scientific American.com

Description

Following up on a tip from his dad, a radiologist in Germany, Franzen asked what happens after war when the shooting stops. Depleted uranium ammunition — used in the Gulf War and the Allied bombing of Yugoslavia and Kosovo — has been hailed as the military’s new silver bullet and condemned as the Agent Orange of the Balkan conflict. The question is now whether the abundant, armor-piercing metal that lies scattered over a wide area of the Balkans presents a health threat to soldiers and civilians, Franzen said. He explored the physics of radiation, the biology of exposure, and the science of modern weapons. Much of the controversy has focused on leukemia. So far, investigating health organizations haven’t found higher rates of leukemia, but believe some caution is warranted. The story has been widely — sometimes badly — reported in Europe, but has not received much attention in this country.

Two people shared the Web award, given for the first time this year to support laudable efforts in the new media. Both winners used mostly text to tell complex international stories, in part from a philosophy to reach as many people as possible on potentially slow home modems that make up a large share of the Web audience, whose computers might be stalled by large video, audio and graphic files.

Harald Franzen

Biography

Born and raised in Germany, Franzen initially went to business school. He interned with various organizations including the German Embassy in Paris and the United Nations in New York and eventually ended up at CBS News in New York, where he worked for seven months and decided to become a journalist. While finishing business school, he worked as a producer for the Associated Press TV in Frankfurt, Germany. He returned to the U.S. to study at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which led to a short reporting assignment for LIFE magazine. It also sparked his interest in science journalism. After graduating in 1998, he worked for the American Museum of Natural History as a science publicist and a year later became associate editor at Scientific American.com. He currently lives in New York City and works as a freelance writer and photojournalist.

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