PBS DOCUMENTARIAN JON PALFREMAN AWARDED 2001 VICTOR COHN PRIZE

Jon Palfreman, who has made more than 30 acclaimed documentaries for PBS on such subjects as Gulf War syndrome, genetically modified food, breast implants, and autism, has been awarded the 2001 Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting.

Award winner Jon Palfreman is congratulated by Deborah Runkel (Victor Cohn's daughter) who presented, on the family's behalf, a copy of Cohn's new edition of News & Numbers.

The prize, for a body of work published or broadcast within the last five years, was created by the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW). The $3,000 award was presented to Palfreman on Nov. 5 at the Council's 39th annual New Horizons in Science Briefing, held at Arizona State University in Tempe.

The judges felt that Palfreman's work was an outstanding example of science journalism in any medium, but especially so because it appears on television, where in-depth examinations of complicated subjects are rare. Palfreman was praised for the breadth of his coverage, the depth of the reporting, and the clarity of the presentation. The judges also noted Palfreman's skill in producing even-handed reports of highly divisive issues, such as the controversy over genetically modified food.

This is the second presentation of the Cohn Prize. Last year's inaugural award was shared by Lawrence K. Altman of the New York Times and Laurie Garrett of Newsday.

Palfreman, who has worked for television in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, produces programs regularly for both NOVA and FRONTLINE on PBS. His 30 documentaries include the Peabody Award-winning series "The Machine that Changed the World" and the Emmy Award-winning "Siamese Twins" on NOVA. He is a three-time winner of both the AAAS Science Journalism Award and the NASW Science-in-Society Award. He set up his own production company, the Palfreman Film Group, in 1996 after leaving Boston's public television station, WGBH. An adjunct professor at Tufts University, near Boston, Palfreman is the author of two books.

The Cohn Prize honors the late Victor Cohn, a science and medical reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune and then science and medical reporter and health columnist for the Washington Post. Cohn distinguished himself for the clarity, honesty, robustness, fairness, and effectiveness of his reporting. He was himself the recipient of numerous writing awards during his long career. In 1959, Cohn co-founded CASW. He was a past president of NASW, and the author of the widely used book News & Numbers, a journalists' guide for interpreting and reporting statistical data in medical and scientific reports.

The Victor Cohn Prize is intended to honor work which, for reasons of uncommon clarity, accuracy, breadth of coverage, enterprise, originality, insight, and narrative power, has made a profound and lasting contribution to public awareness and understanding of critical advances in medical science, and their impact on human health and well-being.

The judges for the 2001 Victor Cohn Prize were Carol Ezzell, an editor at Scientific American; Tom Goldstein, professor of journalism and dean, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; Paul Raeburn, a senior writer at Business Week; Cristine Russell, a freelance science and medical reporter and former reporter for the Washington Post; and Lois Wingerson, editorial manager, News and Comment, at BioMedNet.

CASW is a 24-member panel of scientists, journalists, and educators that develops and funds initiatives to help newspaper, magazine and broadcast reporters and academic public-information specialists pursue stories on science, medicine, and technology.

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(Source: CASW)