Ouch.

Learned today by radio that they're updating -- let's call it graphicizing -- Strunk & White's landmark Elements of Style, for sure a bible for any serious journalist.

Graphics, mind you! Is nothing sacred?

Decades of journalists and other writers and grammarians surely have relied -- and still rely -- on this tiny treasure first published by The Macmillan Company in 1959. I'm proud that my original copy -- like so many of your own, I trust -- commands a revered spot on my closest book shelf. (Mine cost 95 cents, and it's still the most valuable book on the shelf.)

And now, it's all being modernized. Yuk! But wait. I get ahead of myself.

Change is good. Change is necessary. Graphics, indeed, can be and often are good. If a graphicized (in deference to Elements, let's hope that non-word doesn't take hold) Strunk & White captures even one more convert than might occur without it ... that, too, is good. Very good.

Change for good writing. It gets also to the changing, evolving, morphing definition of good journalism. (Notice here the -- graceful? -- transition. At least I've avoided saying "segue.")

How do you define who is and who is not a "journalist"? What constitutes "good journalism"? What about a fine-tuned definition of truly outstanding environmental journalism? Will you know it when you see it?

Those are among the myriad theoretical, some might say rhetorical and philosophical, questions that occur when one ponders -- as those of us associated with the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting have been pondering -- administration of a major new environmental journalism awards program.

This is the stuff an environmental journalism junkie, nee an ink-in-the-veins former reporter, lives for.

But again we get ahead of ourselves. So a step back.

The Metcalf Institute, publisher of Environment Writer, in late September launched a major new annual environmental journalism award, The Grantham Prize for Excellence in Reporting on the Environment. The prize -- with a single award of $75,000 for the winning journalist or team of journalists -- is funded through a grant from The Grantham Foundation for Protection of the Environment, a Boston-based foundation that is deeply committed to protecting natural resources globally.

It is a joy, for sure, to be in any way associated with such an effort, and particularly at a time when the world of journalism, and with it the world of environmental journalism, faces significant uncertainties.

$75,000 is, after all, a lot of money for a journalism awards program. Given the veritable mountain of obstacles that responsible journalism faces, it represents a significant departure ... and a significant commitment on the part of its funders to support outstanding environmental journalism when it most needs all the support it can get.

Which is not to say that any one award or any number of awards on their own could provide the foundation needed for strong and independent journalism, on the environment or any other issue. That's not the purpose of the award.

What is a purpose is to send a message that independent integrity-based journalism is important and worthwhile, indeed critical. Such journalism on the environment is in itself important and, in this case, a priority.

This prize takes its place among a number of other environmental journalism awards programs of substantial reputation and acclaim. Like each of them, no doubt, this Prize aspires to someday be analogous to the Pulitzers, the gold standard of journalism. The naming of a five-person jury panel of respected journalists (see related story, this issue) is an early step in that direction. There will be many more steps ahead, perhaps none more important than those involving the transparency of our processes.

We look forward to the opportunities and challenges each step will present.

Labors of love, after all, don't come around every day.