Sam Evans-Brown (left) and Hannah McCarthy
Best reporting in any medium on international environmental issues
AWARD DATE: 2017
AWARD NAME: The Whitman Bassow Award
AWARD RECIPIENTS: Sam Evans-Brown and Hannah McCarthy
AWARD RECIPIENT AFFILIATION: Powerline, New Hampshire Public Radio
AWARD HONORED WORK: “Outside/In” podcast
AWARD SPONSOR: Citi
This illuminating four-part radio documentary is the result of six months of exhaustive reporting, in which Evans-Brown and McCarthy explore the consequences of a Massachusetts decision to cut carbon emissions by 25%. Their investigation takes them into remote native communities in northern Quebec, where livelihoods have been devastated by giant hydropower projects. Hours of audio include interviews in indigenous languages, decades of history, dissection of Canadian government documents, and the sounds of rushing rivers that immerse listeners in a real sense of discovery. The judges especially liked the team’s ambition, as well as its conclusion that no energy source, no matter how clean, is free of victims—a fact that is too often lost in the coverage of climate change.
Citation Recipients: Douglas Fox, Laurent Ballesta and Camille Seaman
Affiliation: National Geographic
Honored Work: “Crisis on the Ice” and “Under Antarctica”