Each year, The New York Public Library gives the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism to a journalist whose work brings clarity and public attention to important issues, events, or policies. As a member of the Library Review Committee, I spend the year reading the best that investigative journalism has to offer and undertake the difficult job of choosing five finalists. This year, I was transported by Ian Urbina’s thrilling accounts of eco-journalism in The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier.

The ocean, Urbina reminds us, plays a key role in the planet’s reaction to climate change. Its waters absorb carbon dioxide and heat, slowing the effects of global warming. However, the ocean has its limits, which we are rapidly observing. Coral reefs are bleaching, sea temperatures are rising, marine diversity is threatened, and glaciers are melting at unsustainable rates. Human intervention is required to combat these developments. 

But the 'how' of intervention is where the 'outlaw' in 'outlaw ocean' comes in. International maritime law is contradictory, vague, or nonexistent when it comes to carving out the territory and responsibilities of individual nations for the world’s waters. This leads to devastating inaction on the one hand, and calculating exploitation for commercial gain on the other. And the earth isn’t the only causality; indeed, Urbina focuses on the human rights violations enabled by the deregulation of the high seas, including forced labor, inhumane working conditions, and abandoned migrants. 

With such high stakes and complex issues, there is a tendency to feel overwhelmed and despondent. Urbina strikes a powerful balance of open-eyed awareness with a fighting spirit to do what is necessary and possible in the face of humanity’s greatest challenge. His boots are on the ground, sometimes at real personal risk, to profile the actions of those who, as Fitzgerald might say, “beat on, boats against the current”: Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, Palau’s police force, and others working toward responsibility and accountability. The result is a book of moving prose, incisive observation, and most importantly, exemplary journalism. 

For a deeper dive, visit The Outlaw Ocean’s website, including bimonthly collections of original music inspired by Urbina’s reporting.  Urbina is a journalist at The New York Times, where you can see a collection of his work. (If you don’t have a Times account, you can access its articles via the Library’s database.)  Listen to him discuss his process and coverage in a 2016 Google Talk, and visit his YouTube channel for short videos on the stories of The Outlaw Ocean. 

And for more outstanding investigative journalism, learn about the other Bernstein Award finalists for 2020.

More about the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism

The Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism was established in 1987 through a gift from Joseph Frank Bernstein in honor of journalist Helen Bernstein Fealy. Each year, finalists are selected by a nine-member Library Review Committee, and winners are then chosen by the Bernstein Selection Committee. Authors must be working as journalists, or have worked in journalism for a significant portion of their careers, whether as reporters or commentators in newspapers, magazines, or broadcasting. A book's subject matter must be journalistic in nature, with potential for influencing public opinion or policy and drawing public attention to important current issues or events of global/national significance.