Follow LA Observed on Twitter here
A couple hundred LA media people and their friends and loved ones gathered downtown Sunday night for the Los Angeles Press Club's annual awards dinner. [Noted: The Press Club says more than 500 attended.] Too many to mention all the winners, but the headliners are the journalists of the year in various categories:
- Frank Suraci of the Daily Breeze for print journalist of the year: "A 34-year veteran city editor of the Daily Breeze who is known as a 'Lou Grant' journalist, Frank Suraci reached a high point in his career and the newspaper when he oversaw Rob Kuznia and Rebecca Kimitch's series of articles on the Centinela school district corruption that won the Pulitzer Prize," the club says.
- Beau Yarbrough of the San Bernardino Sun for print under 50,000 circulation. That's both print awards going to the Los Angeles News Group. Whoa, the Sun has less than 50,000 daily circulation, serving an entire county?
- Saul Gonzalez of KCRW for radio journalist of the year.
- Brian Addison of the Long Beach Post for online journalist of the year.
- Lacey Rose of the Hollywood Reporter for entertainment journalist of the year.
- Allen J. Schaben of the Los Angeles Times for photo journalist of the year.
The club did not award a television journalist of the year or a sports journalist. I don't know if this is why, but the thing with Press Club awards is you (or your employer) have to apply and it isn't free.
A selection of the other awards to note. The whole list is here, including finalists in addition to the winners.
* The award for political and government reporting went to Andres Pruna, León Krautze and Andres Bonilla of KMEX Univision 34 for a story called La Frontera Millonaria. A team from KMEX also won the environmental category for drought reporting.
* The top long print news feature of the year was Gendy Alimurung's for LA Weekly on WeHo News publisher Ryan Gierach being homeless and trying to clean up the shelter where he stayed.
* I counted several more awards for "SoCal Connected" and KCET also won for two documentaries.
* Steve Chiotakis, the afternoon anchor for "All Things Considered" on KCRW and my conversation partner on Monday afternoons, won for top radio anchor.
* KNX won in Talk/Public Affairs for "Ask the Mayor," with the award going to Charles Feldman, Tom Haule, Jonathan Serviss, Diane Dray and Logan Moy.
* The California Sunday Magazine also won for a long feature, by Ashley Powers on a Mormon town.
* Kimberly Nordyke's Robin Williams obituary for the Hollywood Reporter won the obit of the year.
* The top news story in print went to Kim Masters of the Hollywood Reporter for coverage of the Sony hacks.
* The top print investigative story was Richard Marosi's for Hoy Los Angeles, “Producto de México.”
* H.G. Reza of the OC Weekly won one of the long news feature awards for “Santa Ana Michoacanos vs. the Templarios.”
* Top columnist: Danielle Berrin of the Jewish Journal for “The Horror of ISIS.”
* The headline of the year: “Waiter, I’m Ready for the Tabby,” by Kevin Leung of the Los Angeles Times.
* News website of the year: The Hollywood Reporter.
* Group blog of the year went to Streetsblog LA and individual blog went to Rebecca Plevin of KPCC and the health blog “Impatient."
* Best use of social media went to TakePart.com for Sea World's worst nightmare.
* Schaben also won for photo essay and feature photo of the year, of LA Kings fans celebrating the Stanley Cup. There's a portrait of the year too, and the winner there is Variety and Chris Mihal, Bailey Franklin and Pari Dukovic for photos of French actress Marion Cotillard.
