WASHINGTON - Richard Monastersky, senior writer for science issues at The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Diane Tennant, staff writer for The Virginian-Pilot, have won the American Geophysical Union's 2002 journalism awards.
Monastersky won the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism - News for "A Plucky Spacecraft Explores a Distant Asteroid," published March 2, 2001. It recounts the story of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker mission to 433 Eros, an asteroid orbiting some 315 million kilometers [196 million miles] from Earth. After circling Eros for a year, the "plucky" probe made a soft landing, sending back 67 images during its descent and beating odds described as 99 to one. Monastersky vividly describes the scientific importance of the mission, along with the fiscal constraints and human interactions that shaped it.
Tennant won the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism - Features for "A Cosmic Tale," a seven part series that was published June 24-30, 2001 in the Norfolk-based Virginian-Pilot. (In keeping with competition rules, only three parts were submitted for judging.) Tennant recounts a local story, albeit one that began 35 million years ago, when a meteor impact devastated what is now southeastern Virginia and affected life worldwide. She tells how U.S. Geological Survey scientists discovered the long buried impact crater, and she provides her readers a wealth of highly readable information on planetary science, seismology, ocean science, and related fields.
Tennant's "A Cosmic Tale" may be read on the Virginian-Pilot web site at http://www.pilotonline.com/special/meteor/index.html and Monastersky's "A Plucky Spacecraft Explores a Distant Asteroid" may be read on the Chronicle of Higher Education's site at http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i25/25a01701.htm.
The AGU science journalism awards honor David Perlman, science editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, and the late Walter Sullivan, science writer for The New York Times. They consist of a plaque and $2,000 stipend, "for work that enhances public awareness and understanding of the sciences encompassed by AGU: the study of the Earth, Sun, solar system, and their environments and components." A record number of entries in various media was received for this year's awards.
The 2002 Sullivan and Perlman Awards will be presented on May 29, during Honors Evening at Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C.