For
Immediate Release
(New York, NY – November 18, 2008) Ladies’ Home Journal and author Christopher Andersen were awarded the 2008 Joanie Award for excellence in journalism related to lung cancer on November 18th. The award and $5,000 prize are given annually by Joan’s Legacy: Uniting Against Lung Cancer.
This year Ladies’ Home Journal and Christopher Andersen are the joint winners of the 2008 Joanie Award for highlighting the issue of lung cancer in women and nonsmokers in the August “Health Journal.”
That Journal included an excerpt from Mr. Andersen’s book, Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve, that described Dana Reeve’s valiant fight with lung cancer, and an informative sidebar, “Why Nonsmokers Get Lung Cancer.”
NBC Anchor Brian Williams presented the award to the team and commented on the important role journalists are playing in shining a spotlight on this disease and the desperate need for research dollars.
The “Joanie Award” is part of the ongoing awareness campaign undertaken by Joan’s Legacy, created to honor the memory and mission of its namesake, Joan Scarangello, a TV news producer and writer who appreciated quality reporting and believed that the public needed more information about lung cancer. Joan, a lifelong New Yorker and non-smoker, succumbed to lung cancer in 2001.
The “Joanie Award” selection committee is comprised of producers and managers in various broadcast news organizations, including ABC and NBC News and CNN. Their members include Lennert Bourin, Felicia Patinkin, Libby Rager, Robin Skolnick, Jonathan Wald, and Patrick McNeive. Past winners include ABC’s Dr. Timothy Johnson, NBC’s Robert Bazell, The Wall Street Journal’s senior editorial writer Robert Pollock, the staff of CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360°,” and Newsday writer Lauren Terrazzano.
Joan’s Legacy is committed to fighting lung cancer by funding innovative research and focusing greater attention on the world’s leading cancer killer. Funding $5 Million in new and cutting-edge research in just six years, Joan’s Legacy and its partners in Uniting Against Lung Cancer is fast becoming recognized as the “venture capital” source for ground-breaking lung cancer research.
Lung cancer is the number one cancer killer in the United States, taking more than 162,000 lives each year. Yet lung cancer receives far less research funding than any other major cancer, making the work of Joan’s Legacy even more compelling.
For more information about the “Joanie Award,” the Foundation’s research grant program, the annual Strolling Supper fund-raising event in November or lung cancer itself, please visit www.JoansLegacy.org or www.UnitingAgainstLungCancer.org. |
