Kristina Marusic, EHN’s Pittsburgh reporter, won two 2020 Golden Quill Awards for her reporting on air pollution and cancer in Western Pennsylvania.
The Golden Quills competition, held by the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, honors excellence in print, broadcast, photography, videography and digital journalism in Western Pennsylvania and nearby counties in Ohio and West Virginia. This was the 56th year for the annual awards, which were presented virtually on September 3.
Marusic’s series Prescription for Prevention: Cutting Pollution and Cancer Risk in Pittsburgh won first place in the science/environment non-daily written journalism category, and also received one of three Best in Show Ray Sprigle Memorial Awards.
“Judges said this winning series coupled thorough reporting and analysis with clear, compelling storytelling about an issue that is relevant to literally every resident of Pittsburgh and its surrounding counties,” award presenter Susan Brozek Scott said. “Powerful work that shows how important strong science, environmental beat reporters are to their communities.”
Ray Sprigle was a journalist at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who won a Pulitzer Award in 1938 for uncovering that Hugo Black, a newly appointed U.S. Supreme Court Justice, had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Sprigle later chronicled what life was like for Black residents in the deep South for a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette series that was syndicated by about 15 other newspapers and adapted into the 1949 book, “In the Land of Jim Crow.”
“It’s an honor to receive an award named for such an important journalist,” Marusic said. “I hope my reporting makes a difference for communities in Western Pennsylvania.”