Our Great Geniuses
James Bruggers
James Bruggers ’99, covers the environment for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. His stories covering toxic air in Louisville won the Thomas Stokes Award for best newspaper reporting on energy from the National Press Foundation and a “Best of Gannett” award for beat reporting and performance by an individual editorial employee. His coverage also won an award from the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation, a consortium of professional, scientific and educational organizations.
In July Matthew Eisely ’02, a reporter with the (Raleigh) News and Observer, received the North Carolina Press Association’s 2004 Media & Law Award for reporting on how North Carolina’s judges are selected. “After the elections (I’m covering six races and 16 candidates for state attorney general, state Supreme Court, and state Court of Appeals), I’m going to become a senior general assignment reporter covering the big story of the day/week,” Eisely writes.
Nicki Flynn ’93, assistant news director for KWCH TV, reports that her station won an Edward R. Murrow Award for Continuing Coverage for “The Money Trail,” a series of reports that documented corruption at Wichita (Kan.) City Hall. It is the second year in a row KWCH has won the award in that category. Flynn picked up the award in New York in October.
Joseph A. Gambardello ’87 has become the deputy New Jersey editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Dan Gillmor
Dan Gillmor ’87, a columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, has published We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People (O’Reilly Media), which looks at the collision of technology and journalism and what it means for journalists, newsmakers, and audiences. More about the book can be found at We the media website.
Phillip Langdon
“I met Prince Charles at Highgrove, his estate in Gloucestershire, England, Sept. 17,” writes Phillip Langdon ’80 , “when he gave a speech to the Seaside Pienza Institute about his desire to
restore traditions that he believes had been ‘erased’ from architecture, town-building, and
agriculture during the 20th century. About 85 people, mostly Americans, were part of the tour group assembled by
the Institute, founded by Seaside, Fla., developer Robert Davis, European architect Leon Krier, and Ray Gindroz of
Pittsburgh-based Urban Design Associates. The group visited new and old British developments, including Poundbury,
a traditional town the Prince of Wales has been developing for the past 11 years on the periphery of Dorchester,
in southwest England.” Landon wrote about the prince’s speech and Poundbury in the October-November
issue of New Urban News.
Michael Mansur
Michael Mansur ’94, local government reporter for The Kansas City Star, won first place in the 2004 National Headliner Award contest for beat coverage. His stories focused on the waste of taxpayer money by city governments through high overtime; wasted water; short work weeks of municipal judges; and illegal waivers of penalty and interest payments on delinquent property. He also continues to edit SEJournal, the quarterly newsletter of the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Mark McDonald ’97 is in his third year as Moscow bureau chief for Knight Ridder. He recently completed a second tour of reporting in Iraq, a month-long embedded assignment in Afghanistan and a series of investigative stories from Central Asia. Along with several other colleagues in the Knight Ridder Washington bureau, he also won his second Award of Excellence for Mideast coverage.
Sue Nelson
The University of Michigan gets several mentions in How to Clone the Perfect Blonde, by Sue Nelson, ’03, science correspondent for the BBC. Nelson wrote the first chapter in Ann Arbor and quotes her former physics professor, Fred Adams, in a section on black holes. The book examines the science behind making eight everyday fantasies a reality, from cloning your ideal partner to building a robotic servant and living forever. How To Clone the Perfect Blonde was voted one of the top 15 science books of 2004 in Britain and was published in the United States in November by Quirk Books. It was written with science writer and broadcaster Richard Hollingham, Nelson’s husband and a Fellowship spouse.
Maureen O’Hagen
This year Maureen O’Hagen ’00has received numerous awards, including the Scripps Howard Award for Public Service Reporting, the Newspaper Guild’s Heywood Broun Award, the Associated Press Sports Editors award for investigative reporting, and she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in public service, for a series she wrote with her colleague, Christine Willmsen, called “Coaches Who Prey.” The four-part series, published in December 2003 in The Seattle Times, showed how coaches with a history of sexual misconduct continue to work with youth, and how schools, athletic leagues and even parents fail to protect young athletes from them.
