The Nobel Prizes are being awarded this week. On Monday, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine went to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, whose work identifying a chemical tweak to messenger RNA, probably saved millions of lives.
The New York Times’ Benjamin Mueller and Gina Kolata wrote, “Their work enabled potent COVID vaccines to be made in less than a year, averting tens of millions of deaths and helping the world recover from the worst pandemic in a century. The approach to mRNA the two researchers developed has been used in COVID shots that have since been administered billions of times globally and has transformed vaccine technology, laying the foundation for inoculations that may one day protect against a number of deadly diseases like cancer.”
After Karikó and Weissman won, a couple of my Poynter colleagues and I wondered if there were high-profile stories about them before they won the Nobel Prize. After all, what they did was so critical.
As it turns out, yes, there were extensive stories about them.
In April 2021 for The New York Times, Kolata wrote a story with the headline: “Long Overlooked, Kati Kariko Helped Shield the World From the Coronavirus.” At the time, Kolata called Karikó “one of the heroes” of the COVID-19 vaccine development.
Go back even further to November 2020 when Stat’s Damian Garde and the Boston Globe’s Jonathan Saltzman wrote, “Before messenger RNA was a multibillion-dollar idea, it was a scientific backwater. And for the Hungarian-born scientist behind a key mRNA discovery, it was a career dead-end. Katalin Kariko spent the 1990s collecting rejections. Her work, attempting to harness the power of mRNA to fight disease, was too far-fetched for government grants, corporate funding, and even support from her own colleagues.”
They called her a “little-known scientist who refused to quit.”
Journalist killed in Philadelphia
Here’s a disturbing and sad story. A Philadelphia journalist was shot and killed inside his home overnight on Sunday. Josh Kruger — a freelancer who wrote about the LGBTQ+ community, city and state politics, and other issues for outlets such as The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Citizen, LGBTQ Nation, and Billy Penn — was killed when an unidentified person entered Kruger’s home and shot the 39-year-old. No arrests had been made as of Monday.
The Inquirer's Ellie Rushing reported, “About two weeks ago, Kruger wrote on Facebook that someone came to his house searching for their boyfriend — ‘a man I’ve never met once in my entire life.’ The person called themselves ‘Lady Diabla, the She-Devil of the Streets’ and threatened him, he wrote.”
Rushing also wrote that Kruger “… worked for the City of Philadelphia for about five years, overseeing the mayor’s social media platforms and policy campaigns, and acting as communications director and spokesperson for the city’s Office of Homeless Services.”
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement, “Josh cared deeply about our city and its residents, which was evident both in his public service and in his writing. His intelligence, creativity, passion, and wit shone bright in everything that he did — and his light was dimmed much too soon.”
In a statement, District Attorney Larry Krasner said, “As an openly queer writer who wrote about his own journey surviving substance use disorder and homelessness … Josh Kruger lifted up the most vulnerable and stigmatized people in our communities — particularly unhoused people living with addiction. Josh deserved to write the ending of his personal story.”
Moving over at the Times
Several high-profile sportswriters from the now-disbanded New York Times sports desk are moving to another department at the Times. They include columnist Kurt Streeter and Olympic writer Juliet Macur.
The Times announced Monday that Streeter and Macur, as well as Alan Blinder, Shawna Richer and Billy Witz, are moving to the Times’ national desk.
Streeter will report on questions of identity, including racial, political, religious, gender and more. Macur will still have a hand in sports. The Times says she will “find stories that use sports to reveal the national culture, mood and politics. She will also turn her sharp eye to the lucrative and high-pressure world of youth sports.”
Witz, who covers college sports, will continue to report on colleges and college athletics. Blinder will report on education. And Richer, who was an editor in sports, will now be an editor on the national desk.
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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].
