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	winner
Natasha Gardner and Patrick Doyle

2011 Winner of the Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism

“Dry Times”
Patrick Doyle and Natasha Gardner
5280 Magazine

"Dry Times" explores and explains Denver's water challenges through engaging text and imaginative graphics. It was selected winner for its clear and compelling presentation of a many-layered story of geography, history, land use and policy.

Special Recognition
“Nitrate Contamination Spreading in California Communities”
Julia Scott, Sasha Khoka, Christopher Beaver, California Watch

A multimedia project of California Watch by Julia Scott, a freelance reporter, Sasha Khokha, Central Valley Bureau Chief for KQED Radio and independent filmmaker Christopher Beaver. Scott's stories appeared in print and online for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Bay Area News Group, the Riverside Press Enterprise, Visalia Times Delta and Tulare Advance Register. Khokha's radio reports were broadcast on KQED Radio and Beaver's video segments appeared exclusively on www.californiawatch.org

Special Recognition
“Accidental Wilderness”  
David Wolman, High Country News

A first-person exploration and contemplation of an amazing re-generation around some of the U.S. government's most contaminated nuclear sites. Reporter David Wolman describes in High Country News how these buffer zones have evolved into defacto nature preserves, where wildlife and new species of plants thrive.

 


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