Area native receives journalism award

November 28, 2010 at 12:08a.m.

Marilynn Marchione entered Kent State University in 1972 with an undeclared major.

Nearly 40 years and four professional news outlets later, Marchione, 56, is a successful reporter honored with one of the most prestigious awards in medical-science journalism.

Marchione, an Associated Press reporter and a 1972 graduate of Ursuline High School, recently was awarded the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting.

“The award means a great deal to me because it comes from my peers,” she said. “Victor Cohn did so much to stamp out junk-science reporting, and he brought a rigor to science writing that the field sorely needed.”

Marchione lives in Milwaukee, where she is one the AP’s senior medical writers.

Before starting at the AP in 2004, she had a string of coveted reporting jobs at well-known newspapers across the country, including 10 years at the Akron Beacon Journal, a year at the Chicago Sun-Times and 18 years at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Marchione really found her reporting niche in 1983 when her daughter, now 27, was 6 months old and very sick in the hospital.

The medical process “riveted me. I went from reading parent magazines to reading scientific literature,” she said. “I found it life changing. It seemed to me from then on that nothing else was worth writing about.”

Driven by her newfound passion, Marchione sought spillover stories on the medical beat that the health reporter couldn’t get to. She said she worked hard to learn all she could about medical reporting and took advice from reporters with more experience.

“A lot of people come to it with a strong interest and not necessarily a medical background,” she said.

Milwaukee is where her medical-science writing really began to take shape.

“Once I came to the Milwaukee newspaper, the long-time medical writer was just a very gracious person, and he shared stories,” she said. “He mentored me, and that made a very big difference.”

The skills she acquired during this time and while working for the AP helped earn her the Victor Cohn Prize.

Marchione, the 11th recipient, was given the award and $3,000 on Nov. 7 in New Haven, Conn.

“Marchione’s wide-ranging daily and in-depth consumer health coverage has sought to bring medical science findings to readers in a way that is relevant to their own health choices,” a news release from the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing said.

Marchione’s mother, Alice Marchione, of Boardman, said she thinks her daughter is so talented in the field because of the way she expresses herself.

“She expresses herself well, both orally and written,” she said. “As you can tell she’s more of a news reporter, and she’s excellent.”

But unlike many aspiring writers, journalism wasn’t always something Marchione knew she wanted to do.

After taking a literature final exam in one of her first semesters at KSU, Marchione said the professor pulled her aside and suggested she look into the university’s journalism program.

“I didn’t know much about journalism, but after I turned in my final exam [my professor] said, ‘You really belong in that program,’” she said. “It seemed to combine the things I found most interesting.”

Alice Marchione said she’s proud of all her daughter has accomplished and continues to look for her byline.

“I’ve followed her journalism career as it progressed from her first reporting job at the Akron Beacon Journal ... I still look for her AP byline to keep abreast of her health-related articles,” she said. “That’s my girl. I have a tremendous amount of pride. It makes me feel like I’ve done my job well.”