From a story on sjawards.aaas.org by Earl Lane and Emily Hughes headlined “2021 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award Winners”:
Six entries dealing with aspects of the continuing global COVID-19 pandemic are among the winners of the 2021 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards. Other winners dealt with important issues of equity and ethics in the conduct of science.
The international awards, administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), recognize distinguished science reporting for a general audience. A Gold Award ($5,000) and a Silver Award ($3,500) are presented in each of eight categories.
The pandemic-related winners include a widely shared multimedia piece by Mariano Zafra and Javier Salas for Madrid’s El País on how readily the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can spread via aerosols in a living room, a bar and a classroom; a piece for Wired by Megan Molteni on the historically flawed science behind the World Health Organization’s initial guidance that the coronavirus spreads primarily via droplets from coughing rather than exhaled aerosol particles; and a sensitive account by Maartje Bakker of Amsterdam’s De Volkskrant on the life―and death―of two rhesus monkeys used in research to develop a COVID vaccine.
In a winning video entry, NOVA producer Arlo Pérez Esquivel told of leaving his home in Boston to stay with family in Uruapan, Mexico because he felt he would be safer from COVID. Instead, he soon realized that people were dying all around him and that cases of the disease were being seriously underreported in Mexico.
Among entries that delved into the equity and conduct of science, “Picture a Scientist,” a documentary produced for NOVA on PBS, won for its exploration of long-standing patterns of discrimination against women in science and the determined efforts of biologist Nancy Hopkins, chemist Raychelle Burks and geologist Jane Willenbring to help change that.
CBC/Radio-Canada’s science program “Quirks & Quarks” won for a special on the past and future of Black people in the sciences, including the history of biased and false “race science” that led to their mistreatment and misunderstanding by the scientific and medical communities.
Richard Van Noorden of Nature was honored for a piece on ethical questions surrounding the use of facial-recognition research, including the use of trained algorithms to distinguish faces of predominantly Muslim Uyghur people in China.
Winning entries also explored the beauty and mysteries of nature. Aathira Perinchery, writing for “FiftyTwo”―a digital publication based in India―explored deep questions about evolutionary biology while reporting on the diversity of new species being discovered in India. She is the first Indian journalist to win the AAAS Kavli award since the contest went global in 2015. Zafra and Salas also are the first journalists at a Spanish outlet to win the award.
Tony Bartelme of The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., won his second AAAS Kavli award for a story about an elusive marsh-dwelling bird called the eastern black rail and one researcher’s efforts to study and protect it. Michael Werner also won his second AAAS Kavli award as part of a video team that produced segments for PBS on endangered prairie and forest habitats. Stephen Ornes won for the second time in the Children’s Science News category.
“Congratulations to the talented journalists who enlightened their audiences about the science of the global pandemic, about efforts to diversify and strengthen the research enterprise, and about the beauty and complexity of the natural world,” said Sudip Parikh, CEO of AAAS and executive publisher of the Science family of journals. “These awards continue to spotlight the value of informed, thought-provoking journalism.”
Independent panels of science journalists select the winners. The awards program, endowed by The Kavli Foundation, drew entries from 47 countries in this year’s contest. The winners will receive their awards in a virtual ceremony held in conjunction with the 2022 AAAS Annual Meeting in February.
Here is the full list of winners of the 2021 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards.
Speak Your Mind