Lisa Davis' "Fallout" series, which won a George Polk Award a few weeks ago, wins a 2002 IRE Award for investigative journalism. Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. honors Davis and John Mecklin of the SF Weekly for “Fallout,” which reveals "how a Bayfront property about to be turned over to the city by the Navy may be far more contaminated with radioactive waste than current cleanup plans acknowledge." Other AAN members Phoenix New Times and New Times Los Angeles were the two finalists in the local circulation weekly division, giving New Times a lock on the division.
Nat Hentoff, columnist for The Village Voice, is on a leaked list of Pulitzer Prize finalists making the rounds of American newsrooms, E&P's Joe Strupp reports. No one's vouching for the list's authenticity publicly, but it's making for some tense journalists between now and April 8, when the winners are announced.
San Antonio Current's News Editor Lisa Sorg recently traveled to Chiapas and found that biopirates are pillaging the region in search of the perfect prescription. "The innocuously named 'life sciences' industry is threatening life itself. Through biopiracy -- stealing plants to patent and later manufacture profitable drugs -- corporations such as Merck are undermining biodiversity," Sorg writes. This is the first installment in an occasional series about issues facing Southern Mexico and its indigenous people.