Deadlines approaching for richest journalism prize

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Bud Ward
  (703) 307-0150
  wardbud@gmail.com
  http://metcalfinstitute.org/granthamprize?id=

For Immediate Release

Deadlines Approaching for $75,000 Environmental Journalism Prize

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. – January 2, 2008 – The Metcalf Institute for Marine & Environmental Reporting invites entries for the third annual $75,000 Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment by journalists in the U.S. and Canada. Book entries must be postmarked no later than January 14, 2008. All other entries must be postmarked by February 4, 2008. Entrants will be competing for the largest journalism cash award in the world.

Entries covering environment and natural resources topics and distributed in the United States or Canada between January 1 and December 31, 2007, should be sent to the Metcalf Institute, Grantham Prize Program Administrator.  The prize is open to all journalism, including print, broadcast, and online entries, covering significant environmental and natural resources issues.

Metcalf Institute Executive Director and Prize Administrator Sunshine Menezes said the organization anticipates continued growth in the number of outstanding entries based on recent years of abundant environmental coverage.
 
“With the 2007 Grantham Prize winning series, Altered Oceans, Los Angeles Times reporters Kenneth Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling exemplified the clear, accurate, and impartial journalism that we hope to see. Given the flood of environmental coverage in 2007, we look forward to receiving entries from big and small news outlets, giving local to global perspectives on the major news of the day,” she said.

The 2008 prize jurors will be chaired by Philip Meyer, a Knight Chair in Journalism Professor at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Meyer is the author of the seminal journalism textbook, Precision Journalism, and also of the 2004 book The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age. He was on the Detroit Free Press reporting team that won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for General Reporting for its coverage of Detroit rioting in 1967. Rounding out the highly respected team of Grantham Prize jurors are: * David Boardman, executive editor of The Seattle Times and President of the Board of Directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors;

* Peter Desbarats, former dean of the University of Western Ontario Graduate School of Journalism in London, Ontario, a founding director of the Canadian Journalism Foundation and the founding chair of its annual Excellence Award;
* Diane Hawkins-Cox, senior producer with the CNN Science and Technology Unit in Atlanta; and
* Robert B. Semple, Jr., associate editor of the Editorial Page for The New York Times and a 1996 Pulitzer Prize winner for editorial writing on environmental issues.

Contest rules and additional information about the Grantham Prize are available online at http://metcalfinstitute.org/granthamprize?id=.

The Grantham Prize is funded by Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham through The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment. The foundation supports natural resource conservation programs both in the United States and abroad. Jeremy Grantham is a Boston-based investment strategist and Hannelore Grantham is the Director of The Grantham Foundation.

The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting was established in 1997 with funding from three media foundations – the Belo Corporation, the Providence Journal Charitable Foundation and the Philip L. Graham Fund – and the Telaka Foundation. It is named for the late Michael P. Metcalf, a visionary in journalism and publisher of The Providence Journal Bulletin from 1979-1987. The Metcalf Institute provides science training for reporters and editors to help improve the accuracy and clarity of marine and environmental reporting and offers journalism fellowships in support of diversity and reporting on science and the environment.

—
Bernadette Tavares, Program Assistant
Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting URI Graduate School of Oceanography Narragansett, RI  02882
btavares@gso.uri.edu tel. (401) 874-6024 fax (401) 874-6486