Arctic Rush Documentary Wins National Association of Science Writers Science-in-Society Award

The documentary New York Times Reporting: Arctic Rush, written and directed by Craig Duff, and reported by Duff with Andrew C. Revkin, Steven Lee Myers, Simon Romero and Clifford Krauss of The New York Times, has won this year’s Science-in-Society award, which is conferred by the National Association of Science Writers (NASW). The documentary was broadcast in 2005 and 2006 by both the Discovery Times channel and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

View the opening minute of the program here (must have quicktime player).

Here is the paragraph from the press release:

Broadcast: Craig Duff with Andrew C. Revkin for Arctic Rush, a collaboration of The New York Times, the Discovery Times Channel and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The documentary examines how the melting of the Arctic is affecting travel, business opportunities, and international diplomacy. The judges commended the piece’s solid on-site reporting, and its very thorough analysis of multiple sources of information.

In this still from the film, Borge Iversen and his son fish in the frigid waters above the Arctic Circle off of Norway’s Lofoten Islands. Iversen worries the oil industry’s push for exploration and transportation in the Arctic seas may spoil the waters there. He also believes global warming may impact Lofoten’s cod fishery, one of the world’s most active.

To read the articles in the New York Times series, click here (must have Times Select service).

Discovered While Packing

While packing my apartment to put everything in storage while I’m in Egypt, I discovered these three little gems:

Lost in Translation. A sign warns visitors to the temple in Dharamsala, India, the home of the exiled Dalai Lama, where shoes are not allowed inside. (Click on image for larger view)

The head of a buddha statue being hugged by the trunk of a Banyan tree, among the ruins of Ayutthaya in Thailand. This particular shrine is one of my favorite spots in all of my travels.

A postcard of an 1862 photo of the Pyramids of Giza by Francis Frith (coffee stain, circa 2003).

New York Times Videos

For the past several months, I’ve been working with the New York Times, helping develop and produce video segments for the newspaper’s website.

Here are some of my recent pieces:

The Billy Goat Trail – A travel segment about a rigorous scramble along a boulder-strewn path outside Washington, DC, a favorite hike of New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller.

Lizards & Snakes: Alive! – The Times’s Anahad O’Connor tours a new exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.

Finite Arlington – New York Times science reporter Andrew C. Revkin, who moonlights as a musician in a folk-roots band, wrote a song about Arlington National Cemetery.

An Interview with Nobel Laureate Christiane Nusslein-Volhard – A four-part conversation with the German biologist and Nobel Laureate, with science reporter Claudia Dreifus.

Alejandro Escovedo – A two-part profile and review by New York Times pop music critic Jon Pareles of the latest album by the Austin-based musician and songwriter Alejandro Escovedo. Part Two.

Cairo Bound!

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve been chosen as a Knight International Press Fellow and will be going to Egypt to teach journalism and filmmaking at the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism at the American University in Cairo. The assignment begins in early September and will keep me in the region for nine months. I will also be doing workshops with broadcast journalists in Egypt and possibly other areas of the Middle East. The Knight Fellowships are administered by the International Center for Journalists, and I am one of ten fellows chosen in this round. They are an impressive group, with a wealth of experience and credentials, and I’m very pleased to be included among them.

Here is a page of bios of my fellow fellows: Knight Press Fellows

Here’s the “class photo”: