The Grantham Prize for Environmental Journalism

A winner from the Archives:

2009 Winner: The Smokestack Effect

The USA TODAY reporting team worked with academic researchers to pool government data on industrial polluters near 127,800 schools. What they found was incredible -- in thousands of schools, the models indicated that the air outside could be at least twice as toxic as the air in nearby neighborhoods. In some cases, the difference reached 10 times higher.

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2010 Grantham Prize Seminar

The fifth annual Grantham Prize Seminar was held at the URI Graduate School of Oceanography on October 1, 2010. The seminar, which was free and open to the public, honored the 2010 Grantham Prize winners and provided a forum for discussion about the value of skilled environmental journalists in the wake of major environmental disasters like the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. Following the winners' presentations, the seminar concluded with a panel discussion entitled “Covering the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Balancing Fact, Opinion, and Public Interest.”

Alanna Mitchell receives the 2010 Grantham Prize from Jury Chairman Phil Meyer.

Grantham Award of Special Merit winner, author Cleo Paskal, signs copies of her book "Global Warring."

Cleo Paskal receives her Award of Special Merit from Juror David Boardman.

Dan Egan of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel received an Award of Special Merit for his environmental beat reporting focused on the Great Lakes.

Jury Coordinator Bud Ward (r) presents an Award of Special Merit to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Dan Egan.

Hedrick Smith discusses "Poisoned Waters," a PBS Frontline documentary and winner of a 2010 Award of Special Merit.

Grantham Prize Juror Deborah Potter presents Hedrick Smith with an Award of Special Merit for "Poisoned Waters."

The Seminar concluded with a panel discussion entitled “Covering the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Balancing Facts, Opinion, and Public Interest.”

The Grantham Prize Seminar panel featured leaders in science and journalism for a discussion about the quality of news coverage of the Gulf oil spill.

Left to right: Cleo Paskal, Dan Egan, 2010 Grantham Prize Winner Alanna Mitchell, and Hedrick Smith gather after the Grantham Prize Seminar.

2010 Grantham Prize Seminar (Click to open)

View the 2010 Winner Interviews

View the full 2010 Seminar Panel Discussion

Seminar Program

The 2010 Grantham Prize Seminar began with oil rig fire
Efforts to extinguish a fire on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Photo credit: New Orleans Times-Picayune presentations by the 2010 Grantham Prize Winners and the Award of Special Merit recipients. The Seminar concluded with a panel discussion featuring Dr. Robert Howarth of Cornell University, Peter Kovacs of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, Patti Parson of PBS NewsHour, and 2010 Grantham Prize Winner, Alanna Mitchell. The panel was moderated by Amy Mitchell of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The panelists discussed the communication lessons learned following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of April 2010. This spill is a case study of the need for journalists who have the science background needed to report quickly and accurately in the face of an environmental emergency. The Deepwater Horizon spill presented additional communication hurdles because the scientific research community was forced to react quickly to a situation with many scientific uncertainties.