Last Friday, Nature and Science shared the Premio Principe de Asturias for Communication and Humanities.

Considering that the Premios Principe de Asturias are a big deal in Spain and Latin America, I was somewhat surprised to see that the coverage that they got in the international press was somewhat minor. Not even the fact that Al Gore, Bob Dylan and Michael Schumacher were among the winners in other categories made much of a difference. I guess this goes to show that the Spaniards need to do a lot more of brand building around their Premios.

Even here at Nature Publishing Group, as international a company as we are, our awareness of the Premio Principe de Asturias was relatively limited. Rumor has it that the company had to be contacted a couple of times before realizing that the Award was legitimate and not one of those e-mail scams involving African Princes, which I’m sure all of you receive every once in a while.

I don’t know, but maybe someone in Spain got wind of that rumor and wanted to equalize the score on the day of the awards. Otherwise, how can one explain that, for a few hours, a picture of Nature‘s editor Phil Campbell shaking the hand of Prince Felipe published in the newspaper “El Pais” referred to Phil as the Editor of Science? Or is there something we don’t know, Phil?

Happily, as soon as our press officer got on the case, things were quickly sorted out, the caption was changed, and Phil could have a peaceful dinner with Spanish Royalty.