Bay Nature’s editorial team has scooped up three awards for its science and environment reporting in this year’s premier competition among Northern California journalists—the most yet in our small nonprofit newsroom’s 24-year history.
“As our industry has shrunk over the past two decades, very few news organizations—especially local ones—are still able to devote the kind of care to stories that Bay Nature does,” says Wes Radez, the organization’s executive director and publisher. “The reason we can is that Bay Nature’s members and partners value craft, depth, and integrity—and they share our mission of connecting Bay Area residents more deeply with nature.”
“Over the past two years,” editor-in-chief Victoria Schlesinger says, “Bay Nature has made a concerted effort to strengthen its journalistic power.” For example, it has hired an editor with investigative chops and doubled its editorial fellowships for early-career reporters. “The SPJ awards signal that this effort is paying off, journalistically.”
“We don’t think about awards when we’re doing the work—asking questions, scouring documents, crafting narratives. We’re thinking about our readers,” says digital editor Kate Golden. “But it’s still gratifying to be recognized by our peers for the quality of our work.”
All told, five Bay Nature reporters and seven stories were honored in the Society of Professional Journalists’ NorCal Chapter’s 2024 Excellence in Journalism Awards. Here are the winning entries:
—Environment Reporting (print/online small division): Freelance reporter Sonya Bennett-Brandt wins for “Mud-Starved Wetlands Get a Meal, At Last,” part of our ongoing Wild Billions series on federal money for nature. She reveals why we’ve been dumping valuable sediment offshore—and why that’s finally changing.
—Science Reporting (print/online small division), for a package of three stories:
- “There’s a New Blue Flitting on Xerces’ Old Turf” is freelancer H.R. Smith’s tale of the biologists painstakingly schlepping butterflies up to the Presidio, perhaps to slot into the ecological niche that extinct Xerces once occupied.
- In “Eulogy for a Crayfish We Hardly Knew,” freelancer Anton Sorokin dives into scientific records to investigate why a crayfish last seen a century ago mattered. “For each crayfish is a world unto itself, a host of tiny passengers,” he writes.
- Freelancer Alastair Bland writes about the scientists planting lab-grown kelp off NorCal coast in “Scientists Try a ‘Field of Dreams’ Approach to Restoring California’s Bull Kelp Forests.” This story also resulted in possibly our weirdest and certainly the pinkest cover to date.
—Outstanding Emerging Journalist (print/online): Anushuya Thapa, our 2023–2024 editorial fellow on the Wild Billions beat, won for a package of three stories exemplifying her breadth, creativity, and evenhandedness:
- “Scientists Look to a Rare Butterfly’s Next of Kin,” a thoughtful story about how conservationists decide which species to save. “What makes Lange’s [metalmark butterfly] distinct, really, is that it’s been given a name,” a biologist notes.
- “Forest Service Grants Delayed for Communities in Flammable Forests,” in which Thapa found, through records and interviews, that the agency’s extreme understaffing contributed to dangerous delays for wildfire funding. Notably, Thapa also produced the data visualizations.
- “In the Name of Eelgrass,” an in-depth magazine feature, examines how people living on boats off Sausalito have been pushed out—though it wasn’t the only option—to protect eelgrass meadows.
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Awards night: BN freelancer Sonya Bennett-Brandt accepts her award; (from left) freelancer Anton Sorokin, former fellow Anushuya Thapa, digital editor Kate Golden, Bennett-Brandt, and freelancer H.R. Smith; Thapa accepts, dedicating her award to her parents. Not pictured, but equally valued, is freelancer Alastair Bland. (Photos by Barbara Butkus)
“We’re especially heartened to see Thapa’s win as a testament to the value of our editorial fellowship program,” Schlesinger says. Thapa was the second fellow in the program, an intensive year-long training for early-career journalists from historically underrepresented backgrounds in journalism; it is funded by the Schmidt Family Foundation.
Bay Nature’s stories are always a group effort. The editorial team includes editor-in-chief Schlesinger, digital editor Golden, two full-time editorial fellows (reporters, who also serve as fact-checkers), art director Susan Scandrett—and scores of tremendously talented freelancers, from early-career to seasoned experts, many of whom have worked with us for years.
The best way to sustain Bay Nature’s award-winning environmental journalism is to become a member.
