Pulitzer Center Update

Craig Welch and Steve Ringman Win Environmental Reporting Award

March 17, 2014 | Awards
By
Quinn Libson

Tadi, a Bajau fisherman, spears an octopus in the south Sulawesi region of Indonesia. Hundreds of millions of people, including Northwest oyster growers, gather marine life threatened by changing seas. But Tadi’s village depends so thoroughly on troubled coral reefs that climate change and shifting sea chemistry eventually could make it challenging to find food. Image by Steve Ringman. Indonesia, 2013.

Pulitzer Center grantees Craig Welch and Steve Ringman of The Seattle Times won the 2013 Scripps Howard Foundation's Edward J. Meeman Award for Environmental Reporting for their five-part series "Sea Change: The Pacific's Perilous Turn."

Welch and Ringman were chosen for introducing readers "to ocean acidification, the lesser-known twin of climate change," states the Scripps Howard Foundation press release announcing the award. Their project connects the ramifications of ocean acidification along Seattle's coastline with the effects of the phenomenon across the globe. With Pulitzer Center support, the Seattle Times team broadened its reporting internationally to research zones and indigenous communities, showing how changes in ocean chemistry impact marine life as well as the livelihoods and lives of individuals.

Established in 1953, the Scripps Howard national journalism awards recognize outstanding print, broadcast and online journalism in 15 categories. Entries this year were judged by 52 industry experts, with each category assigned a separate panel of judges. The winners will receive $10,000, and will be honored at a dinner at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati on May 22.