[McKayDavis]

> Basically, the announcement is a secret until it happens.

I too had thought that this was the case, but it appears the press does get at least some advance notice. Last Wednesday Jennifer Doudna found that she had won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in a phone call from a reporter. Ref: paragraph 7 of [1]:

> At a press briefing today, Doudna noted she was asleep and missed the initial calls from Sweden, only waking up to answer the phone finally when a Nature reporter called. "She wanted to know if I could comment on the Nobel and I said, Well, who won it? And she was shocked that she was the person to tell me."

[1] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/crispr-revolutionary...

[vilhelm_s]

The announcement is given at a press conference, so the reporters learn it at that time. The link above says that they try to call the winners a few minutes before it is announced at the press conference, but like your quote says, Doudna missed that call because she was sleeping.

[kingbirdy]

That doesn't contract it being a secret beforehand, though, or indicate journalists are given advance knowledge. It sounds like the timeline was:

1. They fail to contact Doudna to inform her she's a winner

2. They publicly announce she's a winner

3. Journalist calls to ask her about it

[dekhn]

Sounds like Doudna had her phone muted during the night. Apparently some phones do that.

[ghaff]

My phone is set to Do Not Disturb from 10-7 or something like that. Although I think repeated calls (or calls from my contacts) go through. Otherwise, during normal times, I'd get woken up in the middle of the night with junk calls when traveling.