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The LA Press Club held its annual awards shindig on Sunday night. The local journalists of the year honors are the ones that the media types seem to care about most. Here are those, with comments from the Press Club judges:
Comment: Maddaus’ investigative stories were thorough and interesting. He knows how to write a story that peels the layers away one by one until the reader can’t wait to see the ugly corruption fully exposed. His story about the Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office was especially good. His entry was clearly the best in this category.
PRINT (Under 50,000 circulation) - Ryan Vaillancourt, Los Angeles Downtown News
Comments: Good mix of stories on a variety of topics. Displaying strong reporting and writing.
TELEVISION JOURNALIST - Robert Kovacik, NBC4
Comments: Robert Kovacik has not only won the trust and respect of his audience, he's won their hearts with solid reporting and integrity.
RADIO - Warren Olney, KCRW 89.9 FM
Comments: Olney and his team did a masterful job of remembering a traumatic period in the city’s history. Great job.
ONLINE JOURNALIST - Martin Henderson, Patch.com
Comments: As media outlets continue to trim their news staffs and the survivors are expected to do more, Henderson demonstrates versatility and skill in his role as editor of the Rancho Santa Margarita Patch. His entry included excellent examples of news writing, video and photography, covering a wide variety of topics from sports and consumer reports to hard hitting political and court reporting, all optimized for delivery on the Web. His work serves as a model for the future of journalism on the Internet.
ENTERTAINMENT JOURNALIST - Stephen Galloway, The Hollywood Reporter
Comments: Galloway's writing is outstanding and his choices of material to include indicate
intuitiveness and excellent judgment.
PHOTO JOURNALIST - Rick Loomis, Los Angeles Times
Comments: Normally a photo journalist of the year entry includes sports photos and photos from a wider variety of categories. Still, this is an extraordinarily rich set of photographs. The Population Rising story is exceedingly well researched and photographed, and shows the abilities the photographer would bring to any assignment.
There are way, way too many categories to list them all. Here is a list of every winner and the finalists. Noteworthy to see that KCET's dropped "SoCal Connected" won another batch of awards. Maddaus also got the prize for top news story for his LA Weekly piece on "the trail of deceit and lies that Josh Macciello told in his longshot bid for the Dodgers."
Facebook photo from the dinner of SoCal Connected staffers Jennifer London, Dina Demetrius, Bret Marcus and Karen Foshay.
