Provide names of other journalists involved.
Editor: Kate Parry
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
12-Feb-12
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
We have been writing about Karen Ashe and her “forgetful mice” for some years – all the while, scientists and brain researchers telling us that she will one day win the Nobel Prize for medicine. This year we decided it was time to introduce the University of Minnesota professor and her research to a wider audience. But this was no easy task: Although Professor Ashe is a charming interview and a Renaissance woman – skilled in music, cooking and sports and well as biology – she is also notoriously shy, even guarded, about her work. Yet now she is prepared to launch a clinical study that would recruit thousands of Minnesotans and one of the state’s largest HMOs in an effort to pinpoint simple medicines that could slow the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. We urged her to open up about the project and the research behind it.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
No public records, but hundreds of pages of research from medical journals to master the science behind Ashe’s research.
Explain types of human sources used.
Maura Lerner spent months cultivating Ashe – inviting her to dinner, visiting her lab, and urging her to cooperate with a story that would be a personal profile, not just a medical report, and persuading her to offer access to her home, her laboratory and even private fundraising events for her research center.
Results:
None sought – apart from a cascade of effusive letters to the editor.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
No.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
A profile like this stands or falls on access to the subject, close observation, and personal detail. Maura used two techniques to gain access: Convincing Ashe that she now has a public role at the university, as an ambassador for Alzheimer’s research; and long off-the-record conversations to built trust and demonstrate that Maura had mastered the science behind Ashe’s work.