MATTER scores a hat-trick!
Next week MATTER will celebrate its first birthday, and our present has come a few days early: One of our stellar writers, Phil McKenna, has received the 2013 AAAS Kavli award for science journalism. Each year the American Advancement of Science (AAAS) gives prizes in seven categories, and we won the online award for our fourth story, Uprising, about a whistleblower taking on the gas industry.
The winners were announced today. Here’s a bit of background about the competition:
The awards, administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) since their inception in 1945, go to professional journalists for distinguished reporting for a general audience. The Kavli Foundation provided a generous endowment in 2009 that ensures the future of the awards program. Independent panels of science journalists pick the winners, who will receive $3,000 and a plaque at the 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago in February.
We’re tremendously proud of Phil McKenna. He didn’t just find this story—he spent weeks following Bob Ackley, and even more time writing and polishing the 7,000 words (through several rounds of edits and redrafts).
“Science is all too often something that is only done by scientists in a formal laboratory setting. It was fascinating to profile a gas company whistle blower who turned some of the world’s leading climate scientists on to a problem lurking literally right beneath their feet.”
But behind every great story is also a team of hard-working editors and top editors, photographers, and producers (and mappers, in this case). Thanks to everyone behind the scenes for the terrific effort they put forth in producing this compelling narrative: Dan Baum and Margaret Knox for their early guidance; MATTER co-founder Bobbie Johnson for his edit work; Bryce Vickmark for the powerful photographs; Eric Fischer for the engaging maps; copy-editor Kate Bevan; fact-checker Gillian Conahan; and Ian Parkinson and Scott Cawley for the audiobook version.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the world’s biggest (serving 10 million people!) and most influential scientific society, so we feel honored to be recognized for such a prestigious accolade. It’s also an amazing vote of confidence for a young publication like us. This is the third award we’ve won in our first year: A few months ago Megan Scudellari won the Clark/Payne award for Never Say Die; and last year Anil Ananthaswamy won the prize for Best Investigative Journalism at the Association of British Science Writers’ awards for our launch story, Do No Harm.
All this, and we’re only just getting started.
To celebrate this achievement, we’re making Uprising FREE. So, join us in congratulating Phil McKenna for his terrific work and link like crazy to it!
If you want to read more deep, intelligent journalism, become a MATTER member for just $0.99 per month. Members receive everything we publish, as well as exclusive benefits like audio versions of our stories,e-books, invites to Q&As with our authors and the chance to shape the topics we cover.
