Gareth Cook

So Cook devoted months last year to exploring different angles of the story, traveling as far afield as Kiev in the Ukraine and producing eight articles on the subject. In April 2005, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced that Cook had won in the category of explanatory writing. Fresh from the announcement, Cook visited students in May in the course "Media and Health Communications: Practical Skills," taught by HSPH Director of Communications Robin Herman; Director of the Division of Public Health Practice Howard Koh; and Director of the Center for Health Communication Jay Winsten.

The course provides students with an overview of the media environment and teaches practical skills for handling interviews and press conferences; writing press releases and opinion articles; and developing and implementing mass media campaigns to effect positive behavior change. The course also demystifies the newsgathering and reporting process, and Cook provided an exclusive insider's view.

"When I begin to write a story, I ask myself two questions: 'What do I want the story to accomplish' and then 'What is the best, most effective way of getting there?'" he explained.

For embryonic stem cell research, that meant starting the series with an article about a Weymouth, MA couple who had conceived two children using in vitro fertilization and who subsequently faced the decision of what to do with unused frozen embryos in storage at the fertility clinic Boston IVF: retain them, discard them, or donate them to scientific research.

"I wanted to understand what these frozen embryos actually meant to them, not to people on both sides of the debate who were arguing about this in a sort-of policy sense," said Cook. He added, "In asking that question, it became clear that the answer is much more complicated and nuanced and, in some ways, more unsatisfying than what you hear from both sides of these arguments."

From there, Cook investigated a clinic in the Ukraine that was charging $15,000 for one "embryonic stem-cell treatment" for boys with muscular dystrophy. He broke a story on how two teams of Harvard scientists were undertaking steps to eventually produce cloned embryos for disease research, with one team having reached the preliminary point of seeking approval from the University's ethical review board. He covered the hope presented both by adult stem cells, which would not require the destruction of embryos, and by an envisioned technique that would create stem cell-like entities without producing embryos. He bridged basic science, with a story about how stem cells may be implicated in cancer, and policymaking, with an article on how the U.S. is lagging behind other countries in developing new embryonic stem cell lines.

Following his presentation, Cook fielded questions from students, ranging from how he finds stories, to how he deals with his personal opinions, to how he chooses a story's structure.

Appropriately for a talk at a school of public health, Cook described how he perceives the intersection between news and science. In addition to sources quoted in articles, Cook noted that he maintains a network of scientists who are willing to explain concepts or research implications, even though their names may never appear in an article. He in turn is willing to listen to possible story ideas, given that they are interesting and important to the public.

"Scientists and journalists have largely convergent interests," said Cook. "We want the public to understand something accurately."

To read Cook's series, visit http://www.pulitzer.org/.