The Knight-Risser Prize
for Western Environmental Journalism
The Knight-Risser Prize and Symposium are being reimagined to better encourage coverage of important environmental issues affecting the West. Please follow @JSKstanford on Twitter for more information and announcements.

2011-12 Knight-Risser Prize Symposium
Adapting to Dry Times:
The Role of the Media in an Increasingly Arid West

Read a recap of the symposium and get a video or audio replay of the proceedings.
Join us to celebrate the winners of the 2011 Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism — Denver's 5280 Magazine — for their vibrant and informative coverage of Colorado's water crisis. Judges felt the story "Dry Times" hit the Holy Grail of explanatory journalism — making a complex and potentially dull topic easy to grasp and fun to read. The authors, Natasha Gardner and Patrick Doyle, together with Sasha Khokha of KQED's California Report, who was part of a team that shared the judges' Special Recognition, will participate in a lively discussion about innovative ways journalists can tell the stories and illuminate the challenges of water in the West.

Panel Discussion, Award Presentation and Q&A Session

Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012
4:30-6:30pm
Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge
Stanford University

Panelists

David M. Kennedy, Moderator
Faculty Co-Director, Bill Lane Center for the American West
Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus, Stanford University

Natasha Gardner
5280 Magazine, Denver, Colorado
Winner, 2011 Knight-Risser Prize for "Dry Times"

Patrick Doyle
Executive Editor, Boston Magazine
Former Senior Editor, 5280 Magazine
Winner, 2011 Knight-Risser Prize for "Dry Times"

Sasha Khokha
Central Valley Bureau Chief, KQED Radio, San Francisco
Judges' Special Citation, 2011 Knight-Risser Prize

Andrew Fahlund
Executive Director, Water in the West Initiative
Woods Institute for the Environment, Bill Lane Center for the American West
Stanford University


Location
Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge
Stanford University (at the Medical School)
291 Campus Drive West
Stanford, CA
(View map: Stanford | Google)

The discussion will be preceded by a public reception. Please RSVP using the form below.

Logistics
Parking on campus is free after 4pm.

 

Panelist Biographies

David M. Kennedy, Moderator
Evelyn LarrubiaDavid M. Kennedy is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus. Professor Kennedy received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1988. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1999 for Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War. He received an A.B. in History from Stanford University and M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. Reflecting his interdisciplinary training in American Studies, which combined the fields of history, literature, and economics, Professor Kennedy's scholarship is notable for its integration of economic and cultural analysis with social and political history.

Natasha Gardner
Lewis KambNatasha Gardner is a writer and editor at 5280 magazine. From gritty investigations to craft beers, her writing focuses on the West. Her investigation of the Colorado foster care system ("
Unwanted," December 2010 ) received multiple awards, including a prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2010, she was a National Magazine Awards finalist for "Low on O2," a service package that explores the impact of altitude on day-to-day life in Colorado. Gardner has also appeared on Colorado Public Television to discuss her work and current affairs. She was a Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma Ochberg Fellow in 2011. Before settling in Colorado, she worked in book publishing in New York. She has a BA from Smith College and holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Colorado.

Patrick Doyle
Mark KatchesPatrick Doyle is a Boston-based magazine editor and writer. He's currently the executive editor of Boston, where he edits the magazine's long-form narratives and oversees the digital department; he also writes on politics and urbanism. He's also a contributing writer for Mountain, which covers recreation and lifestyle in the high country. Previously, he worked for seven years at 5280, Denver's city and regional magazine, finishing his tenure there as the senior/digital editor. Doyle's freelance writing has appeared in Men's Journal, Skiing, The New Republic Online, American Cowboy, and Philadelphia. He received his B.A. in psychology from Villanova University, and studied as a fellow at the Knight Digital Media Center's 2011 Web 2.0 program at the University of California, Berkeley.

Sasha Khokha
Ann GrimesSasha Khokha is KQED Public Radio's Central Valley Bureau Chief. Based in Fresno, she covers a vast geographic beat, including the nation's most productive farm belt, some of California's poorest towns, and Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks. Whether trekking up a Sierra glacier with her microphone, interviewing farmworkers in Spanish, or explaining complicated air or water quality issues, Sasha translates rural Central California to listeners in the rest of the state. Her radio stories have won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Radio-Television News Directors Association, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, the California Teachers Association, and the Association of Health Care Journalists. Sasha joined KQED in 2004, after stints as a reporter in Alaska and with NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. Sasha's work is also heard on National Public Radio and PRI's The World. Sasha is a graduate of Brown University and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Sasha is also a documentary filmmaker; her film Calcutta Calling documents the lives of teenage girls adopted from India to Swedish-Lutheran Minnesota. The film was nominated for a national broadcast Emmy in 2007.

Andrew Fahlund
Elizabeth TitusAndrew arrived at Stanford in January 2012, as Executive Director of the
Water in the West Project, a joint initiative of the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Bill Lane Center for the American West. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President, Conservation for American Rivers, focusing on broad scale reform of dams. He has served on several governmental advisory groups, testified before the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives as well as numerous federal agencies, and participated in various policy forums and negotiations addressing water policy in the United States. He has a B.A. in Human Ecology and Archaeology from Colorado College, and an M.S. in Natural Resource Policy and Administration from School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan.

 

 

 

Previous symposiums:

Knight-Risser Prize Symposium
November 17, 2010:
“The Crisis in Western Environmental Journalism”


Risser Prize Symposium
January 27, 2010:
“Visualizing the Environment”

2008 Risser Prize Symposium
March 13, 2008:
“Environmental Fallout of the Cold War”

2005 Risser Prize Symposium
November 1, 2005:
“Water in the West: 21st Century Challenges in a 19th Century Legal Framework”

 

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WINNERS OF THE KNIGHT-RISSER PRIZE
2017
Hell and High Water
Texas Tribune, ProPublica
2016
Pumped Dry
The Desert Sun and USA Today
2015
Big Oil, Bad Air
CPI, InsideClimate News, The Weather Channel
2014
Sea Change
The Seattle Times
2013
The Killing Agency
The Sacramento Bee
2012
Perilous Passages
High Country News
2011
Dry Times
5280 Magazine
2010
Chain Saw Scouting
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
2009
Logging and Landslides:
What Went Wrong?
The Seattle Times
2008
Climate Change Hits Home
San Antonio Express-News
2007
Blighted Homeland
The Los Angeles Times
2006
Squeezing Water from a Stone
High Country News