AGU Journalism Awards won by Margaret Munro and Dr. Richard Smith

WASHINGTON – Margaret Munro and Dr. Richard Smith have won the American Geophysical Union’s 2008 journalism awards:

• Munro will receive the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism—News for her article on the biggest breakup in northern Canada in 30 years of an ice shelf – suspected to be a victim of global warming. The winning article appeared in The Gazette, the largest English-language daily newspaper in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

• Smith will receive the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism—Features for his documentary film “Crude.” Smith, a marine biologist turned filmmaker, directed “Crude” for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The film examines oil's ancient origins and the geology of its formation, the prodigious use by industrial society of the substance as fuel and raw material, and potential consequences of that massive consumption.

The Perlman Award recognizes work published with deadline pressure of one week or less. In choosing Munro’s The Gazette article about the ice-shelf collapse, the Perlman Award selection committee said,

“Munro’s article chronicles that event and its belated discovery from satellite images in a graceful and clear manner. The story is well balanced in terms of the science. Her writing captures the excitement of the scientific discovery in pulling together the evidence: from the first hints of detection through earthquake tremors, to identification of the large ice island, to the environmental consequences.”

Munro’s winning article, which was published on 28 December, 2006 may be read at http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=e4c99314-a71a-4418-a246-eea457e8b873&k=82636. Munro writes for CanWest News Service and is based in Vancouver, British Columbia.