NASW AWARDS LAUD CRITICAL, PROBING WRITING

by Richard L Hill

Controversial biomedical subjects—cloning, stem cells, abortion, a breast-cancer study that went awry—are among the winning entries in the 2003 Science-in-Society Awards.

NASW holds the annual competition to honor outstanding investigative and interpretive reporting about the sciences and their impact on society. Awards are made in six categories: newspaper, magazine, television, radio, Web, and book. Each winner receives $1,000 and a certificate, which will be presented in February at the 2004 annual meeting of NASW, in Seattle.

In the newspaper category, Dan Fagin of Newsday took top honors with his three-part series “Tattered Hopes.” The series took a critical look at how political pressures, activists, and scientists undermined the ambitious $30-million Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project. The series of studies was launched to investigate possible links between pollution and breast cancer. Judges said that “Dan showed what happens when the world of epidemiology collides with public misconceptions and hopes as well as political pressure.” They said the entry was a “thoughtful, well-written, and even-handed look at a highly politicized investigation” and “should be mandatory reading for any journalist setting out to document the passionate voices of scared citizens, the placating intonations of politicians, and the bewildered and bewildering responses of public health officials.”

Kyla Dunn of The Atlantic Monthly won in the magazine category for “Cloning Trevor,” an article about highly experimental work on the cells of a boy with a life-threatening genetic disorder. She gained access to the labs of Advanced Cell Technology, which is conducting human cloning research for medical purposes. The judges said the access allowed Dunn to get to know, “and to portray with some fine insight,” the three major scientists involved in the company’s ongoing human embryo cloning work. They added that her “accounting of the company’s scientific work was thorough and detailed—a real tour de force of explanatory journalism. Yet she also gave a full accounting of the political, religious, ethical, and financial threads that all are such important parts of the therapeutic cloning story and which played into the complex motivations of the scientists involved.”

In the radio category, the judges awarded Joe Palca of NPR the top prize for his three-part series “Stem Cells.” Palca contrasted the U.S. climate for this type of biomedical research with what is happening in Britain. The judges said Palca “deserves special recognition for his fresh approach to a well-worn subject. “One part of the series told the tale of two embryologists, one who left Britain to work at a state-of-the-art U.S. lab operated with private funds and the other who left the United States for Britain to work in what he sees as a more receptive environment. “The juxtaposition of the two scientists, and of their countries, worked well as a device for telling two sides of a politically charged story—and putting a human face on them.” And by visiting labs on both sides of the Atlantic, “Palca helped put the current debate over a ban on stem-cell research into a larger context.”

John Rubin of CNBC-National Geographic Explorer won for “Clone” in the television category. His in-depth look at the issue of cloning discussed how we might one day resurrect extinct species, grow replacement organs, and possibly make duplicates of ourselves. Judges found the entry “created a coherent picture from the complex subject’s many facets—cloning to make copies of people, cloning to create spare parts for aging bodies, cloning to boost the food supply, and cloning to resurrect extinct animals and dead pets. In addition to discussing the potential cost of such efforts, the producers’ intimate access to the research gave viewers a front-row seat as discoveries unfolded—unscripted—before the cameras.” Judges also said Rubin “encapsulated the many complex issues in a comprehensive, imaginative way” and “picked stories of real people who would be affected by cloning.”

Margaret A. Woodbury of Salon.com won in the online category for “A Doctor’s Right to Choose,” which examined the controversial procedure known as “intact dilation and extraction” to most physicians and “partial birth abortion” to its opponents. The judges said “there are few of the bells and whistles one might expect nowadays from an online news report, but the hyperlinks to in-depth resources, the invitation for feedback—and the personal approach—set this written-for-the-Web story apart from your usual ink-on-paper news article.” They added that Woodbury “manages to avoid a coldly clinical approach as well as the overheated polemics that so often characterize discussions of abortion and reproductive choice. She provides multiple perspectives of the ethics and the science, but she does not shrink from taking a point of view.”

In the book category, Steve Olson won for Mapping Human History, which explores the topic of racial identity. The judges said Olson’s book has enormous sweep and clarity. “He’s traveled all over the world talking to all the experts and some of the most genetically diverse human beings alive; and he’s pulled together all this research in a book that flows. It not only educates, but moves the reader.” They also said Olson makes his case “with a remarkable sweep of perspectives, from the individual to the global, and across all human evolution. His scholarship, too, is impressive, including the vast amount of literature he consulted as well as the compelling in-field report he did that took him around the world.” They concluded that Mapping Human History is a “big-think book that could help an ever more globalized world grapple with its diversity in a sustainable way.”

The 2003 awards committee was co-chaired by Carol Ezzell of Scientific American and Richard L. Hill of The Oregonian, in Portland. The final judging committee consisted of Ezzell, Rick Weiss of the Washington Post, Dawn Stover of Popular Science, and Alan Boyle of MSNBC.com.

Finalists were selected by committees representing each category. Newspaper: Hill (chair); A.J. Hostetler, Richmond Times-Dispatch; and Alexandra Witze, Dallas Morning News. Magazine: Charles Petit, U.S. News & World Report (chair); Kathryn Brown, Science and freelance; and Corey Powell, Discover. Web: Kate Wong, Scientific American (chair); Erik Stokstaad, ScienceNow; and Karen Watson, Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Broadcast: Tom Watkins, CNN (chair); John Hammarley, KDFW (Dallas); and Dan Keller, Keller Broadcasting. Book: Jonathan Weiner, freelance (chair); Ivan Amato, freelance; and James Shreeve, freelance.

The deadline for submitting entries for the 2004 Science-in-Society awards is July 1, 2004 for work published or broadcast in North America between June 1, 2003 and May 31, 2004. Books must have a 2003 copyright date and be published during that calendar year. See nasw.org for more information.

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Editor’s Note: Dan Fagin also takes top honors in the AAAS Science Journalism Awards. See page 24 for details.

Richard L. Hill is the science writer at The Oregonian and co-chair of the 2003 Science-in-Society Awards Committee.