KPLU'S KEITH SEINFELD WINS 2007 AAAS SCIENCE JOURNALISM AWARD

KPLU'S KEITH SEINFELD WINS 2007 AAAS SCIENCE JOURNALISM AWARD

(Seattle-Tacoma, WA) KPLU Assistant News Director/Health and Science Reporter Keith Seinfeld is a recipient of the 2007 AAAS Science Journalism Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Independent panels of science journalists chose the winners of the awards, which honor excellence in science reporting for print, radio, television and online categories. The awards, established in 1945, also include a prize for coverage of science news for children, which is open to journalists worldwide. The judges awarded a special Certificate of Merit in the children's category this year, as well.

Seinfeld won in the Radio division for his thematic series, "The Electric Brain," which aired on KPLU in January of 2007. The series described the electrical properties of the human brain and how scientists are finding new ways to use those properties to treat diseases and injuries. The judges were impressed by his clear, concise language and great use of sound in telling about important research in neuroscience.

"While a drill whines in the background, cutting a hole in the top of a patient's skull, Keith Seinfeld carries his listeners into the story," said Jeff Nesmith, a Washington-based science writer for Cox Newspapers. "This kind of radio journalism seizes a listener's attention while it delivers an understandable account of complicated science." David Baron, global development editor for Public Radio International's "The World" program, praised the "vividness of the writing, the clarity of the scientific explanations, the superb use of sound, the dramatic storytelling." He said Seinfeld's work "hangs together beautifully as a series, with each story building upon those that came before. Well conceived and brilliantly executed, 'The Electric Brain' is radio science journalism of the highest order."

Keith Seinfeld has worked at KPLU since 1996. He took first place in the Western Washington Society of Professional Journalists' 2007 Excellence in Journalism Competition in the General News category for his story, "Mental Illness Safety Net is Torn." In 1999, Seinfeld won the national Edward R. Murrow Award for best documentary from the Radio-Television News Directors Association. He has a bachelor's degree in humanities from Stanford University and a master's from Stanford in education.

Earlier this year, Seinfeld was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship and is currently studying in Cambridge at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. The fellowships are designed for self-motivated journalists who hope to improve their coverage of science, technology, medicine or the environment. Seinfeld will return to KPLU in the spring of 2008.

More information on the AAAS is available at http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/1115sja.shtml.

To read more about, and hear Seinfeld's "Electric Brain" series, go to http://www2.allblues.org/news/brain_series.html.


Ranked as one of the most popular radio stations in the nation, KPLU-NPR News and All That Jazz-is listener-supported and provides local and National Public Radio news, and jazz and blues on 88.5 in Seattle/Tacoma, 89.3 in Port Angeles/Victoria, 90.1 in Olympia and other communities in its signal network, which has the largest footprint in the Northwest. At www.kplu.org, the station provides a live stream of NPR News and All That Jazz, as well as a 24 hour jazz stream, one of the most listened-to webstreams in the world. KPLU is also available on HD radio at 88.5 FM. KPLU is a community service of Pacific Lutheran University.