David Perlman | News Break

David Perlman

David Perlman (born December 30, 1918), is an American science journalist, based in San Francisco, California. He began his career as a reporter in 1940 at the San Francisco Chronicle, where he started covering science in 1957, after breaking his leg while skiing and reading about astronomy during his recovery. He became the Chronicle's science editor emeritus after retiring in August 2017 at the age of 98. In a 2017 interview for Poynter, he stated that cuts to science coverage in the media are "absolutely obscene" and create "a generation with a major disability in what they can think about and understand." In 2000, the American Geological Union recognized his contributions to science news reporting by instituting the "David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism—News". A former president of the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, he is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of journalism awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the United States Geological Survey.

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Born

1918-12-30

Birth Place

Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.

Place Of Death

San_Francisco,_California

Education

Master_of_Arts

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San Francisco, CASan Francisco Chronicle2021-03-31

Scholarship established to honor Chronicle science editor David Perlman

A journalism scholarship in the memory of The Chronicle’s late, beloved science writer and editor David Perlman has been established by a San Francisco youth foundation. The David Perlman Scholarship will be awarded each year to a college journalism student, particularly one interested in following the path of science writing that Perlman practiced at The Chronicle for more than half a century.

San Francisco, CAKQED2020-12-21

Remembering Science Writer David Perlman: A Legend in His Own Time

David Perlman was the kind of journalist who had newspaper ink in his veins. When he retired from the San Francisco Chronicle three years ago, at 98, he was the oldest known full-time news reporter at a U.S. metro newspaper. With a career that spanned most of the last century...