Science - 31 January 2020

SCIENCE sciencemag.org 31 JANUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6477 521

a goal—in addition to promoting broader
public understanding of science—of foster-
ing the relationships of science writers and
their sources. James B. Conant, president
of AAAS in 1946 (and also president of Har-
vard University) noted at the time that “the purpose of the [George
Westinghouse Science Writing] awards is to assist in developing
closer cooperation between news writers and scientists.”
“The ties between the reporters and those they covered were pretty
chummy in the early days, when the awards were very much aimed
at describing science as an emerging force in American life,” said Earl
Lane, executive director of the awards. “Over the years, the approach
became more probing,” he said. “The judging panels are now com-
posed exclusively of science journalists, and the winning entries often
describe not only the underlying science but also its impact on society.”
Among the early judges were some big names: critic H.L. Mencken
(1947–1948), Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins (1949–1951)
and Esquire Editor Harold Hayes (1963). Dixy Lee Ray was recruited
to judge in 1972, one year before she was appointed chair of the
United States Atomic Energy Commission by President Nixon, but
she was a no-show. Astronomer Carl Sagan was also a no-show, after
being recruited to judge in 1976.
By that year, the program had expanded to include not only news-
papers but also magazines, which had been added early on, in 1947.
Radio and television debuted in 1981. In 2001, the dramatic shift to a
digital format that was starting to overtake journalism was reflected
in a new online award category.
“The platforms for disseminating good science journalism have
changed over the years, and the awards have adapted to those
changes,” said NPR’s Joe Palca, who has said of the award he won
in 1997, “It was the award you most wanted to win if you considered
yourself a serious science journalist.”
Many of the best-known names in science journalism have won
the awards—among them Natalie Angier, Deborah Blum, Ira Flatow,
Atul Gawande, and Elizabeth Kolbert. Some of the winners were just
starting careers and went on to further success in science journalism
after having been honored with the AAAS Kavli award.
“I didn’t think I was doing science writing,” said Hotz, referring in a
2018 interview to the work that won him his first award in 1977. “I was
just doing the daily news. [The award] was a bolt from the blue, and it
was a moment of discovery.”
In 2009, the Kavli Foundation granted the awards program a $2
million endowment, assuring its long-term future, and the awards
were renamed the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards. The foun-
dation doubled its endowment in 2015, allowing the program to go
global and accept entries from journalists around the world. It also
expanded the program to include two awards in each of the contest’s
eight categories. The current categories are Large Newspaper, Small
Newspaper, Magazine, Video Spot News/Feature Reporting (20 min
or less), Video In-Depth Reporting (more than 20 min), Audio, Online,
and Children’s Science News.
In the first year of the international contest, 1158 entries arrived
from 44 countries, which was almost twice as many entries as the year
before. The program handled the deluge by recruiting senior science
journalists who had been AAAS Kavli award judges or members of the
Managing Committee to help screen the many entries before passing
them on to the Washington-area scientists who volunteer to screen
the submissions for scientific accuracy. The program also recruited
international judges from The Guardian, Nature, and the German news
agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur to join the judging panels.
“At that time,” said Hotz, “the award went from a signature
national award to one that celebrates the best science journalism
of the entire globe. It was transformative, and really opened up the
influence of the award.”

There have been multiple winners recently from the United King-

dom, Canada, Germany, and France. There also have been winners

from China, Australia, South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, the Neth-

erlands, Switzerland, and Ireland. There were 1116 entries from 47

countries for the 2019 contest.

Through it all, the AAAS Kavli awards continue to promote the

value of both science reporting and science itself. As Julia Cort and

Chris Schmidt, co-executive producers of NOVA for PBS, put it: “In an

age when reporting and expertise are the target of ideological attack,

the recognition offered by the awards highlights the importance of

evidence-based storytelling. The awards help to promote scientific

inquiry as a critically important activity in our society.”

For more information on the winning entries, go to sjawards.aaas.org.

A resident orca, subject
of a Gold Award–winning
series by The Seattle Times,
breaches in Puget Sound.

NOVA production by Lion

Television for WGBH in

association with ARTE France

Silver Award

Henry Fraser, Carlo Massarella,

and Dan Kendall, Windfall

Films for Smithsonian

Networks and the BBC,

in association with NHK,

Canal +, and Welt24

ONLINE

Gold Award

Sharon Begley, STAT

Silver Award

Nicholas Kusnetz,

InsideClimate News

AUDIO

Gold Award

Rory Galloway and Geof Marsh,

BBC Radio 4

Silver Award

Andrew Luck-Baker,

Kevin Fong, Rami Tzabar,

and Chris Browning, BBC

World Service

CHILDREN’S

SCIENCE NEWS

Gold Award

Lindsay Patterson, Marshall

Escamilla, and Sara Robberson

Lentz, Tumble Science Podcast

for Kids

Silver Award

Sharon Oosthoek, Science

News for Students

2019 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award winners

Strong local reporting on the status of Puget Sound’s killer whales,

the degradation of soils in a region of France, air quality in Utah, and

the impact of an Idaho nuclear research facility are among the win-

ning entries for the 2019 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards.

The judges also honored a NOVA program on “The Next Pompeii,”

BBC audio reports on the development of technology that enabled

astronauts to land on the moon, and a trio of stories by Sharon Beg-

ley for STAT on how f erce loyalty to the prevailing hypothesis on the

origin of Alzheimer’s disease likely has hampered progress toward

a cure. The winners:

LARGE NEWSPAPER

Gold Award

Lynda Mapes, Steve Ringman,

Ramon Dompor, Emily Eng, and

Lauren Frohne, The Seattle Times

Silver Award

Nathaniel Herzberg, Le Monde (Paris)

SMALL NEWSPAPER

Gold Award

Erica Evans,

Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

Silver Award

Amy Joi O’Donoghue,

Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

MAGAZINE

Gold Award

Maryn McKenna,

The New Republic

Silver Award

Tom Whipple, The Times

Magazine (London)

VIDEO

Spot News/Feature Reporting:

Gold Award

Mairead Dundas and Marina

Bertsch, France 24

Silver Award

Agnes Walton, Lee Doyle, Arielle

Duhaime-Ross, and Ruben Davis,

VICE News Tonight

In-Depth Reporting:

Gold Award

Duncan Bulling, Caterina Turroni,

Richard Bradley, and Chris Schmidt,

Published by AAAS