Cancer Society honors Banner’s Be Healthy

Banner Staff

Be Healthy, a monthly publication of The Bay State Banner aimed at reducing racial and ethnic disparities in health care, was one of 14 New England recipients of the American Cancer Society’s 2007 Sword of Hope Media Award for excellence in communications about cancer, the Society’s New England Division announced Tuesday.

Established in 1974, the Sword of Hope Awards pay tribute to the news media’s role in raising public awareness of and deepening understanding about cancer. The 2007 award covers print and broadcast journalism published or broadcast during 2005 and 2006. The 14 winners represent 12 news organizations based in Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut.

“Clearly, we’re delighted to have the quality of Be Healthy recognized by the American Cancer Society,” said Melvin B. Miller, publisher and editor of The Bay State Banner. “But our real objective is to inform our readers so that they will be better prepared to attend to their health needs and reduce ethnic and racial disparities in health care.”

The judges for the 2007 Sword of Hope Awards were Ann LoLordo, deputy editorial page editor at The Baltimore Sun; Garland Waller, associate professor of television at Boston University; David Galletly, vice president at WAMC/ Northeast Public Radio, Albany, N.Y.; and K. Viswanath, Ph.D., associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health and a researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Be Healthy, edited by Karen Miller, shared honors in the Weekly Newspaper category with The Falmouth (Maine) Forecaster, which was recognized for editor Mo Mehlsak’s story about colon cancer prevention and detection.

Other categories and local winners included:

• Irene Sege of the Boston Globe, in the Daily Newspaper (Circulation Over 50,000) category, for her 2006 feature story “Wednesdays with Perry and Jay”;

• Ronni Gordon of the Springfield (Mass.) Sunday Republican, in the Daily Newspaper (Circulation Under 50,000) category, for her story “Where Hope Dwells”;

• a tie in the Radio category between WBUR-FM’s Allan Coukell, for his piece “New Lung Cancer Test,” and WNPR-FM in Hartford, Conn., for “The Mystery of Breast Cancer,” produced by John Dankosky, George Goodrich and Evette Cooke;

• The Women’s Times of Great Barrington, Mass., in the Magazine/Periodical category, for their “Guide to Breast Cancer Resources”;

• Butch Stearns of WFXT Fox 25 in Boston, in the Television News/Feature Story category, for “Fenway First Pitch”;

• Trish Reske, in the Freelance category, for her article “Conceiving the Inconceivable,” writing for Bay State Parent;

• Community Vision 21 in Newtown, Conn., in the Local Cable Access category for the Charter Communications program “In Your Community,” produced by Dave King; and

• a tie in the Continuing Overall Effort category between WCSH6 in Portland, Maine, for their “Buddy to Buddy” program, and the Connecticut Post, for Meg Barone’s series of cancer articles.

The winners will receive their awards on May 16 at a dinner to be held at the Harvard University Faculty Club in Cambridge. More than 60 entries from all over New England were entered in the competition.

Be Healthy, which debuted in September of 2006, is a yearlong print and online campaign providing monthly information on a variety of health topics linked with racial disparities in health care. The publication is produced in collaboration with Partners HealthCare, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and the Boston Public Health Commission.

For more information, see the Banner’s Be Healthy Web site at www.baystatebanner.com/behealthy.