One of this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists will deliver the keynote address at Northern Arizona University School of Communication annual Eunson Award Ceremony Wednesday.

Bettina Boxall, a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, where she covers natural resource environmental issues, and fellow reporter Julie Cart won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for “Big Burn” which examined the growth and cost of wildfires.

Judges noted Boxall and Cart for “their fresh and painstaking exploration into the cost and effectiveness of attempts to combat the growing menace of wildfires across the western United States.” The Pulitzer Prizes, which were announced Monday, are the highest awards in journalism.

Boxall has written extensively on water, forests and wildfire.

During her talk, “Environmental Reporting in the Age of Spin and 24/7 News,” Boxall will discuss the importance and difficulty of burrowing into complex, specialized topics — as opposed to simply repeating what the government or industry or environmentalists tell reporters.

The Eunson Award Ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. in the NAU School of Communication (Building 16), Room 119, and is free and open to the public.

Receiving the “Eunson Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award in Journalism” is Jennifer McKnight, a Summa Cum Laude graduate of NAU with a journalism degree with an emphasis in environmental communication and a minor in anthropology.

Her career in journalism includes various reporting and editing positions for newspapers in the states of New Jersey, New York and Indiana, where her well-researched and sometimes controversial stories garnered her numerous awards, including a first-place award for environmental reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.

She currently works in New York City as the Web editor for the Architectural Record and GreenSource magazine, a job that entails designing and managing online content including producing videos, blogs, podcasts and much more.

The honor is awarded to alumni of NAU who, through their mass communication work, have proven themselves outstanding in their chosen field.