Backgrounder: Robert Lee Hotz

By Kristina Fiore

Robert Lee Hotz.

Robert Lee Hotz's science coverage is as diverse as his journalistic knowledge is wide-ranging. In 1995, the same year in which he and the staff of The Los Angeles Times won the Pulitzer Prize for the paper's breaking news coverage of an earthquake in Northridge, California, Hotz's science writing repertoire included stories on dinosaur DNA, the human brain and the size of the universe.

Surprisingly, Hotz, 55, insists that his formal science education is probably no more extensive than his average reader's. His B.A. in English and M.A. in Theatre History from Tufts University were enough to land him his first journalism job in 1976 as a general assignment reporter at The News-Virginian. As his career advanced through the ranks of respected dailies such as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and, presently, The Los Angeles Times, his desire to improve the public's understanding of science – something general circulation newspapers have historically done a mediocre job of doing, he claims – transformed him into a science writer.

One of Hotz's patented techniques for engaging his readers is to show them how science affects them personally. As well, he often frames science in a political context, providing fodder for thought-provoking debates about topics such as when life actually begins and whether global warming exists.

Hotz's coverage of the Columbia shuttle disaster in 2003 is a classic example of how he explains complicated science to his readers. In a six-part series, the Times reporter chronicled, in gripping yet scientifically accurate prose, the events surrounding Columbia's midair breakup. In the first story's compelling climax, Hotz writes, "Columbia had burst into a confetti of debris. Torn into thousands of pieces, it was falling with a rolling rumble of sonic booms across Texas and Louisiana. From the ground, the disintegrating spacecraft was a winter thunderstorm of wreckage." His reporting earned him a nomination for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing.

Hotz was also Pulitzer nominee in 1986 for a series in The Pittsburgh Press that examined new developments in genetic engineering, exploring the legal, moral and social impacts of biotechnology. In 1995, Hotz won the Pulitzer he'd been dreaming with the Times of for the paper's coverage of the Northridge quake.

Hotz began his journalism career as a general assignment reporter for The News-Virginian, an 11,000-circulation daily that covers the Shenandoah Valley. There, he divided his time between writing obits, covering breaking news and working on investigative stories. Throughout, he wrote science stories though in those days he thought of them simply as part of the news of the day, not as science journalism, a category unto itself.

One of those science stories turned into a series about the watershed of the South River in Virginia, which caught the attention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and gave Hotz his first AAAS award in 1977.

The rookie science writer then landed a job as an official science writer at The Pittsburgh Press, where he worked through the mid-1980s.

Hotz's science-writing journey has not only taken him through newsrooms nationwide; he has observed the expansive wasteland of the South Pole as well as the intricate tangles of Einstein's brain.

"I think I always wanted to be a journalist," Hotz says. "I liked being in the middle of things as they unfolded. I love the craft of writing."

Hotz points to his work at the South Pole – "a lethal place of unearthly beauty," in his words – as one of the high points in his career. In a May 2005 Los Angeles Times story, he writes about snowfall in Antarctica, a disconcerting indicator of global warming. In the past, notes Hotz, it was "too cold for snow" at the South Pole.

Some of Hotz's most recent work, such as the Times series, "Mapping the Mind," focuses on the human brain. In one unforgettable passage, Hotz summarizes what Sandra Witelson, a Canadian scientist studying the differences in male and female brains, found when using Einstein's brain to substantiate one of her theories. "Einstein's brain – so far from ordinary in its intellectual achievement – might reveal a telltale anatomical signature," Hotz writes. "Size alone certainly could not account for his brain power. 'Here was somebody who was clearly very clever, yet his overall brain size was average,' Witelson said. 'It certainly tells you that, in a man, sheer overall brain size can't be a crucial factor in brilliance.'"

In addition to the Pulitzer, Hotz won AAAS's Westinghouse Award in 1997 and The American Geophysical Union's Walter Sullivan award for science journalism in 1995. In 2003, the scientific research society Sigma Xi named Hotz an honorable lifetime member.

Nonetheless, Hotz isn't motivated by the thought of professional honors. "I think I always wanted to be a journalist," Hotz says. "I liked being in the middle of things as they unfolded. I love the craft of writing." He's also consumed by an insatiable curiosity, shared by scientists and journalists alike, that drives him to bring the public news about how science – from dinosaur DNA to Einstein's brain – affects the world they live in.

Kristina Fiore is the graduate assistant for NYU's Science and Environmental Reporting Program (SERP).

SOURCES

Hotz, Robert Lee. “Mapping the Mind: Deep, Dark Secrets of His and Her Brains.” The Los Angeles Times. June 16, 2005.
Hotz, Robert Lee. “As Climate Shifts, Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Growing.” The Los Angeles Times. May 20, 2005.
Hotz, Robert Lee. “Racial Differences Are Only Skin Deep, Scientists Say.” The Houston Chronicle. April 16, 1995.
Hotz, Robert Lee. “Scientists Discover Brain Part that can Read the Faces of Fear”. The Los Angeles Times. Dec. 15, 1994.
Hotz, Robert Lee. “Jurassic Park Revisited: DNA Is Extracted From T-Rex's Bones.” The Houston Chronicle. Nov. 18, 1994.
Hotz, Robert Lee. “Magellan Begins Spiral Toward Venus, Death.” The Houston Chronicle. Oct. 12, 1994.
Hotz, Robert Lee. “Frozen Embryos: A New Front In The Abortion War.” The Seattle Post-Intelligencier. June 21, 1992.
Hotz, Robert Lee. Personal Interview. Oct. 8, 2005.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Website. Oct. 8, 2005. http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/awards/
The Pulitzer Prize Website. Oct. 8, 2004. http://www.pulitzer.org

Backgrounder: Robert Lee Hotz

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