Science Journalism :: 2007 Award Winners

The Science Journalism Research Group at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism is pleased to announce the three winners of our first annual competition for excellence in Canadian science reporting.

A $3000 prize was available for each of three categories: print, broadcast and Internet science journalism.

We received many excellent works of science journalism from a large number and wide variety of outlets: Daily Planet, inklingmagazine.com, science.ca, Science Creative Quarterly, cbc.ca, CRAM Science, discoverychannel.ca, The Tyee, Canadian Geographic, CanWest News, Toronto Star, and University Affairs.

A panel of independent judges narrowed down the entries to the winners:

The Genome BC Society and Ethics Prize for Print Science Journalism
    Forgotten Lake
    Allan Casey
    Canadian Geographic

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The CMMT Prize for Broadcast Science Journalism
    Gunther's Thin Slices
    Carol McGrath, Brian Marleau, Kelly McKeown
    Daily Planet
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Prize for Internet Science Journalism
    Blowing Big Smoke at Asthma
    Stephen Strauss
    cbc.ca
Link to site

A fourth award, the Barry Lando Prize for Best Science Journalism Overall, was announced at our conference Future Directions in Science Journalism, held on November 10 in Vancouver at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. The award went to Stephen Strauss.

From left to right: Stephen Strauss, Stephen Ward, Anne-Marie Varner, who accepted the award on behalf of the Daily Planet team, and Allan Casey

The science journalism initiative at the Graduate School of Journalism includes research into science journalism on controversial issues, such as genomics. The research is part of a larger brain disorder study, the Pleiades Promoter Project, funded by Genome Canada. The journalism research is carried out by the Science Journalism Research Group, headed by Prof. Stephen J.A. Ward, director of the School of Journalism.

Congratulations to the winners! We look forward to another exciting competition next year.