Southern California News Group publications earned numerous awards at the 2023 California Journalism Awards.
Journalists from throughout the state received recognition during the California Journlsim Awards gala held on Saturday, July 13, at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Los Angeles. SCNG finished first in 12 categories and had 25 top-three awards in the contest. The awards recognize journalists throughout California for work published in 2023 by the California News Publishers Association.
Categories in which SCNG newspapers were honored included General Excellence, sports feature story, religion and faith writing, feature and artistic photo, among others.
The Palos Verdes Peninsula News won first place in the General Excellence category in its circulation level. The judges said that coverage by the Palos Verdes Peninsula News team on the landslides at Rancho Palos Verdes last year hit “all the angles with its landslide coverage: powerful photos, how to help tips, what happened, who’s responsible, what’s next and a Q&A on what readers are asking about how homes could fall off a cliff.”
The Grunion Gazette won second place in its category for General Excellence.
Palos Verdes Peninsula News won first place in the general excellence category in its circulation level at the 2023 California Journalism Awards on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (Photo by Ryan Carter, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
The late Jean Shriver, an award-winning columnist for the Palos Verdes Peninsula News, won a couple of major awards posthumously as well. Shriver won first place in the open columns category for all divisions and first place in a smaller-newspaper category for her column, “She stopped making plans, but life happened anyway.”
“She really connected with her readers,” Lisa Jacobs, of the Beach Reporter and Shriver’s editor, said at the gala on Saturday while accepting the awards on Shriver’s behalf. “She was an incredible human being and this is unbelievable, thank you.”
Jacobs also received a first-place award in the writing category for her story, “Curiosity isn’t killing cats in Hermosa Beach, it’s just getting them more treats.” The judges said that the column was a “great example of how a talented writer can take a simple subject and turn it into something that’s a joy to read. Good imagery, good quotes, and great wordplay. Cheeky writing oftentimes comes off judgmental or mean; Jacobs avoids this pitfall deftly.”
Sarah Reingewirtz, of the Los Angeles Daily News, won first place in the Division 2 photo story/essay category for the photos accompanying the series on “Fentanyl crisis in L.A.’s MacArthur Park.” Reporter Clara Harter and Reingewirtz won second place for the series in the enterprise news story or series category.
Here are SCNG’s other first-place honorees:
Chris Haire and Kristy Hutchings, of the Grunion Gazette, in the sports feature story category for “Police shortage won’t impact Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, officials say”;
Brooke Staggs, of the Orange County Register, in the religion and faith writing category for “Christians and climate change: Southern California churches preach very different messages”;
Jo Murray, of the Long Beach Press-Telegram, in sports feature story for “From King of the Beach to personal struggles, racing icon Al Unser Jr. strives to rise anew”;
Mindy Schauer, of the Orange County Register, in the Division 1 feature photo category;
Chuck Bennett, of the Grunion Gazette, in the Division 4 feature photo category;
Will Lester, of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, in the Division 3 artistic photo category; and
Keith Birmingham, of the Pasadena Star-News, in the Division 3 photo story/essay category.
Kristy Hutchings, editor of the Grunion Gazette and senior reporter for the Long Beach Press-Telegram, placed second in several awards as well, including coverage of local government, and two stories about youth and education.
The staff at the Orange County Register won second place in breaking news for their coverage of the Cook’s Corner mass shooting.
For a full list of awards in the contest, visit cnpa.com/2023-cja-contest-winners.
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