The Hansgrohe Award for Journalists 2010

“We want to raise public awareness of the sustainable use of water” (Klaus Grohe)

Journalists Dr. Max Rauner and Dirk Asendorpf received the inaugural Hansgrohe Award for Journalists 2010. The award was presented to them for their dossier ‘In focus: water poverty’, which appeared in ZEIT WISSEN, the science journal from the weekly paper DIE ZEIT, in 2009. The award is endowed with 5,000 euros.  

The award was presented on 08 October 2010 – at the end of the third Hansgrohe water symposium in Schiltach. Max Rauner accepted the award from Klaus Grohe, Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Hansgrohe SE and Professor Dr. Klaus Töpfer, the former Federal Minister for the Environment.    

The judging panel

Under the auspices of Klaus Töpfer, the award winners were selected by a judging panel of five water experts and journalists:

• Christoph Kucklick, deputy editor-in-chief of GEO and editor-in-chief of geo.de,
• Dr. Klaus Lanz, chemist and environmental scientist,
• Peter Wien, former broadcasting centre director at NDR and former editor-in-chief of the television programme Arte,
• Dr. Iris Zink, science journalist and
• Philippe Grohe, head of the designer brand Axor from Hansgrohe SE.    

From the judging panel’s reasoning

The article not only presents the different issues of an insufficient water supply in different parts of the world, but also the solutions implemented. And does so outstandingly. The dossier helps encourage readers to think about their everyday use of water in an exemplary manner. The excellent quality of the research and the informative graphics provided by Ela Strickert also won over the judging panel.  

Klaus Töpfer on the winners

“Max Rauner and Dirk Asendorpf used their dossier to successfully provide a clear picture of the different aspects of global water poverty. It is also particularly impressive that rather than simply describing the problems, the two authors also focused on the solutions that had been found. In addition, the clear statements and stringent structure of the award winners’ work also gave both lay people and water experts alike an excellent insight into the topic.”     

Klaus Grohe on the Hansgrohe Award

“As a sector pioneer for water and energy-saving products, Hansgrohe is dedicated to improving public awareness of a conscious, sustainable use of the precious resource of water. The Hansgrohe Award for Journalists emphasises the key importance of committed, attentive and responsible media reporting on this topic. We are extremely pleased that so many outstanding entries were submitted. Entries that achieved million-strong audiences in the country’s leading media.”  

Two honorary mentions and a special award

The judging panel assessed two other submissions as particularly worthy of a mention and gave them extraordinary recognition:  

• Dr. Sebastian Engelbrecht received recognition for his radio feature ‘The country where wells spring forth’. (ARD studio Tel Aviv, programme ‘Environment and nutrition’; SWR ContRa, 2009). The 29-minute feature impressed the judging panel with its comprehensive portrayal of the water emergency in Israel and Palestine.
• The freelance journalist Gesa Gottschalk received an award for her article ‘The green islands of the Sahara’, published in the magazine GEO in 2010. The judging panel particularly praised the author’s poetic language in which she outlined what it meant to keep the oasis economy in the Algerian desert alive.  

A special award was presented by Hansgrohe SE to the editorial team of the Südwestrundfunk (south-west broadcasting station) for their week of programmes ‘SWR water worlds’. In May 2010, numerous radio, TV and online features by the station focussed on the resource of water from several different perspectives over a period of seven days. The special award was accepted by Inge Landwehr.