Peter Griffin, Manager of the Science Media Centre, was yesterday named the winner of the Fulbright-Harkness New Zealand Fellowship for 2012-13. The awards ceremony took place in the Banquet Hall, Parliament Buildings.
Peter will travel to the US early next year for two months to undertake a research project looking at the future of public interest journalism as the sustainability of the mainstream news media increasingly comes under pressure.
Peter will be visiting independent centres of public interest journalism that have emerged in the US, such as the Center for Public Integrity, ProPublica and the California Center for Healthcare Reporting, to see what can be learned from these centres of excellence that could be applied back here in New Zealand to assist the news media in ensuring public interest journalism isn’t sacrificed as a cash-strapped media’s commercial imperative sharpens.
Peter will also be assisting a team of scientists, journalists and science communicators attempting to establish a Science Media Centre in the US. The results of the research will be published in the winter edition of Pacific Journalism Review, with ongoing commentary on Sciblogs.co.nz.
