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| Volume 46, Number 2, Fall 1998 |
The 1998 NASW Science-in-Society Journalism Awards were presented on November 3, in Boston, at the annual banquet of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. The event is held in conjunction with the council’s annual New Horizons in Science Briefing, hosted this year by Boston University.
For the second year in a row, the winner of the newspaper category was The Wall Street Journal for a cancer series led by staff reporter Robert Langreth. As usual with the Journal, the reporting was exemplary, the writing excellent and the overall thrust just about perfect, according to the panel of judges.
“The Selling of Impotence,” by David Stipp and David Whitaker won in the magazine category. Published in Fortune, it’s a most unusual story that does a superior job of finding just the right touch for a difficult subject. The story also had this grabber of a lead:
“A new chapter in the history of impotence began in 1983, when a 57-year-old British physician named Giles Brindley stepped from behind the lectern at a Las Vegas medical conference, dropped his pants, and showed his erect penis to hundreds of colleagues.”
Stepped up efforts at publicizing the Science in Society Awards produced a bumper crop of broadcasting entries this year. The honors went to Jon Palfreman for “The Last Battle of the Gulf War” on PBS’s Frontline—a fine piece of journalism on Gulf War Syndrome that went directly into the teeth of conventional wisdom.
Members of the award selection committee were Debbie Franklin (Health magazine), Dave Salisbury (Stanford University), Lisa Krieger (San Jose Mercury News), Bob Holmes and John Douglas (freelance), Charlie Petit (U.S. News & World Report) and Joel Shurkin (freelance).
The following young journalists received Leo Allard/Pat McGrady Travel Fellowships to attend the New Horizons meeting: Lorisa Brass, The Oak Ridger (Oak Ridge, TN); Andrew D. Bridges, Pasadena Star-News (Pasadena, CA); Lynne Glover, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Monroeville, PA); Anntionette (Toni) Moore, Longview News-Journal (Longview, TX); Kurt Loft, The Tampa Tribune (Tampa, FL); Donna Mungen, USA Today (Altadena, CA); Christina S. Johnson, North County Times (Solana Beach, CA); and Jill Nicholls, Journal Sentinel (Davis, CA).
The Leo Allard/Pat McGrady Travel Fellowships were underwritten by a grant from The Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
Based on NASW news release and judges’ comments (with permission).
NASW officers Paul Raeburn (center) presented the 1998 Science-In-Society Awards to (l-r) Robert Langreth, John Palfreman, David Stipp and David Whitaker.
CASW President Jerry Bishop (left)
with Harvard University Professor Dudley Herschbach, keynote speaker
at the New Horizons annual banquet.