"Dilbit" Oil Articles Net Pulitzer Prize for Alumna

Lisa Song '08, SM '09 won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting along with two other writers working for InsideClimate, a web-based news organization that covers clean energy, carbon energy, nuclear energy, and environmental science.

The Pulitzer honored their reporting on problems with the regulation of America's oil pipelines, focusing on potential ecological dangers posed by diluted bitumen (or "dilbit"), a controversial form of oil.

Song, who earned an undergraduate degree in earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences and then a master's degree in MIT's graduate program in science writing, coauthored articles on "The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You've Never Heard Of." That project explored the million-gallon spill of Canadian tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River in 2010 and examined broader pipeline safety issues.

Of course the writing program is cheering.

"We are thrilled to hear that Lisa is part of the talented journalistic team that has contributed so brilliantly to the national media discussion of our environmental future," says Jim Paradis, head, Comparative Media Studies/Writing Department. "I congratulate Lisa and all the members of the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing who helped her on her way."

Another MIT SHASS science writing alumna, Carolyn Johnson SM '04, was part of the Boston Globe team that was a finalist in that same category. The team was  cited for their coverage of the deadly national outbreak of fungal meningitis traced to a compounding pharmacy in suburban Boston, revealing how the medical regulatory system failed to safeguard patients.