"It's a story that is both terrifying and hopeful": Jo Chandler wins Eureka Prize for Science Journalism
Jo Chandler, a Senior Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism, was awarded the Australia Museum Eureka Prize for Science Journalism in Sydney on 23 August. The Eureka Prizes are presented annually by the Australian Museum, rewarding excellence in scientific research and innovation, leadership, engagement and school science.
Jo Chandler, winner of the 2023 Eureka Prize for Science Journalism. Photo by Tim Levy.
Ms Chandler, whose previous distinctions include Walkley and Quill awards, was awarded the Prize for her longform essay Buried Treasure, published in 2022 by the Griffith Review. It’s the third time she has been nominated for the coveted prize in her own right. In 2002, she also led a team which won the prize for The Age.
Buried Treasure navigates urgent questions about science, our heating planet and the human condition. It follows the most ambitious Australian Antarctic endeavour in a generation – the quest for the million-year ice core. She first heard of the project some 15 years ago during fieldwork in Antarctica for a series of stories which became a book, Feeling The Heat (MUP, 2011), and then kept tabs on it until it finally became a reality.
Speaking the morning after the Prize ceremony, Ms Chandler emphasised that listening to the stories of science and heeding their warnings has always been, and remains, critically important:
“Listening to the acknowledgement of country at the ceremony last night, we heard about how stories passed down through the ages kept the Gadigal people safe and in harmony with their world. It underlined how critical it is in a dangerous and precarious world to hear and honour the stories of science – it's about survival.”
Director of the Centre of Advancing Journalism Associate Professor Andrew Dodd said Ms Chandler’s win was testament to her extraordinary skill and tenacity as a journalist:
“This is richly deserved recognition of Jo’s commitment to telling hard-to-tell stories from hard-to-reach places. It demonstrates her ability to convey scientific complexity in relatable ways. Jo was one of the first – and remains one of the best – when it comes to explaining the significance and consequences of climate change and somehow, she manages to find the energy to continue warning us about the need to act.”
Ms Chandler was quick to acknowledge the generosity of scientists in sharing their work.
“Telling stories of epic science, and the scientists who do it, is one of the great privileges of journalism,” she said.
“This award really comes out of the generosity of countless scientists over the years sharing their work, experts across the spectrum - glaciologists, epidemiologists, entomologists, biologists, atmospheric scientists, you name it.”
When asked to share any insights into the experience of working on a story over such a long period of time, Ms Chandler said that building and maintaining relationships was essential.
“In my teaching at the Centre for Advancing Journalism, I bang on to students about the importance of cultivating areas of specialist interest, and of maintaining the professional relationships they make over the years. This story is an example of what comes out of those long relationships of trust and engagement. Sometimes as reporters we can be lucky and find ourselves in the right time and place. But more often it's not about luck at all. It's about long haul effort, and of building a reputation and connections with people who trust you.”
Ms Chandler says Buried Treasure is “about both the smallness of humanity in the scheme of things, and also our epic impact on the planet – for worse and, potentially for better if we get our act together.”
“One of the things I loved about exploring this story was the entanglement of so many threads - of exploration, science, politics and policy and how they are shaped by these intimate foibles of human ambition and endeavour.
“It's about the amazing feats humans are capable of, and what drives them. About the damage we can do collectively, and what drives that. It's a story that's both terrifying and hopeful. Which way that swings now is up to all of us.”
Read more about all of the University of Melbourne's Eureka Prize 2023 recipients