16 February 2012
Journalists are invited to submit nominations for the American Geophysical Union’s 2012 journalism awards, honoring outstanding reporting on Earth and space sciences. Each of the two 2012 awards consist of a plaque and a $5,000 stipend, to be presented on 8 December 2012 at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Entries must be received at AGU by 16 March 2012 — a much later deadline than in prior years. (So, if you thought you missed the deadline, you didn’t!)
Nominations are welcome for:
- The David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism—News, which recognizes excellence in science news reporting, generally produced under deadline pressure of one week or less. It is named for David Perlman, Science Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and 1997 winner of the AGU Award for Sustained Achievement in Science Journalism.
- The Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism—Features, which recognizes excellence in science feature reporting, generally produced under a deadline of longer than one week. It is named for Walter Sullivan of The New York Times, who was the first recipient of the award.
Nominations may be submitted for work first published in 2011 only, and may be from any country, in any language (English translation required), and in any news medium, except books. Entries will be judged by how well they meet one or more of the following three criteria: brings new information or concepts about AGU sciences to the public’s attention, identifies and corrects misconceptions about AGU sciences, and makes AGU sciences accessible and interesting to general audiences, without sacrificing accuracy.
The deadline for award entries to be received (not postmarked) at AGU headquarters in Washington, D.C., USA, isFriday, 16 March 2012.
The only authoritative statements of the rules governing these awards (and a link to the nomination form) are posted at http://bit.ly/wvDKfQ for the Perlman Award and at http://bit.ly/zh3ldn for the Sullivan Award. On each award’s website, please consult the following sections — Award Biography, Nomination Process & Requirements, and Submission Process — for nomination rules, access to the nomination form, the mailing address for entries, and submission details such as the number of copies to provide. Please note that the Evaluation Process sections of the award sites are being revised; if you have questions about the evaluation process, please contact Peter Weiss, AGU Public Information Manager, at [email protected], or +1 202-777-7507.
AGU is a worldwide scientific community with more than 60,000 members. Its mission is to promote discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity.