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News Release

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. – (For immediate release: November 28, 2006) – Applicants for the 2007 $75,000 Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment have a March 5, 2007, postmark deadline for competing for the largest journalism cash award in the world, the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting announced today.

For journalism on environment and natural resources produced and distributed in the United States and Canada between January 1 and December 31, 2006, entries must be postmarked by no later than March 5 and sent to the Metcalf Institute, Grantham Prize program administrator.

Metcalf Institute Executive Director Sunshine Menezes, Ph.D., said the organization looks forward in the second year of the Prize to maintaining the quality of entries submitted in the first year, in which The Record, of Bergen County, N.J., was awarded the $75,000 Prize for its 2005 landmark series on chemical contamination from an abandoned motor vehicle manufacturing facility.

"Given the outstanding broadcast, cable, newspaper, magazine, book, and online journalism on these critical environmental and natural resource issues, we're expecting to double the workload of our prize jurors as they sort out the 'best in class' in this second year," she said.

The prize jurors again in the second year will be chaired by Philip Meyer, 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;
• Dennis Bueckert, National Affairs Reporter with Canadian Press in Ottawa, Canada, where he focuses on environment, health, and science;
• 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://www.granthamprize.org.

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 internationally. 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 after 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.