The Sacramento Bee wins 25 awards at CNPA’s California Journalism Awards
The Sacramento Bee was honored with 25 prizes at the California News Publishers Association’s annual California Journalism Awards Gala on Saturday in Long Beach.
The awards recognize the work produced in 2018 and included a wide variety of stories, photos and videos. The contest drew more than 3,000 entries from daily, weekly and campus newspapers. The Bee was honored for general excellence for its digital and print platform among the state’s largest news organizations.
José Luis Villegas won first place in the feature photo category for his humorous photograph of turkeys blocking traffic at UC Davis in August. He also won third place for his coverage of New Year’s celebrations in Sacramento.
The paper’s staff garnered two awards in the breaking news category for large papers.
The judges awarded third place to the paper’s staff entry, anchored by Anita Chabria, on coverage related to the March 18, 2018, shooting death of Stephon Clark by two Sacramento Police officers and the community’s reaction, as well as the incident’s lasting aftermath and the reforms it prompted. The judges called it “compelling journalism using full digital reporting range to tell likely the most important story in Sacramento in 2018.” It also praised The Bee’s use of crowdsourcing to help review the police videos in the city’s Meadowview neighborhood.
The photographs capturing the community in turmoil in the wake of Clark’s death also won fifth place in the photo essay category for Hector Amezcua, Renée C. Byer, Paul Kitagaki Jr. and Villegas.
The judges also gave fifth place to reporting of the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, the defendant in the decades-long East Area Rapist case, by Sam Stanton, Ryan Lillis, Darrell Smith and Benjy Egel; the judges credited the team’s informative reporting on the cold case’s significance to the state and “how authorities used digital and genealogy tools to crack this case.” Chabria won fifth place for her profile story of a detective in the case.
Marcos Bretón was awarded third place in commentary for questioning the privilege Gov. Gavin Newsom received from family and political allies on his road to the state’s highest office, and the “pass so many Californian have given” him, which the judges called “both eye-opening and thought-provoking.”
Ryan Sabalow, Dale Kasler, Phillip Reese and Chabria were awarded third place for enterprise news series for “Rural Sheriffs,” which explored the dangerous consequences of understaffing and a lack of law enforcement resources in sparsely populated sections of Northern California. The series also won third place in the in-depth reporting category.
Coverage of the deadly Camp Fire garnered a second-place award for feature writing for Sabalow, Lillis, Kasler and Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks, who captured a “breathtaking account of evacuations during the deadly conflagration,” the judges wrote.
“When Paradise Became Hell,” the gripping behind-the-news story of the fire that killed 85 people, earned third place for Alyssa Hodenfield, Amezcua, Byer and Michelle Inez Simon in the video journalism contest.
Kitagaki won third place for his coverage of President Donald Trump’s visit to Paradise. Amezcua was also awarded fifth place for his news photo of melted cars trying to escape Paradise in November.
Both the “Rural Sheriffs” series, along with team coverage of the Camp Fire, won the McClatchy President’s Awards last month.
Bryan Anderson’s dogged coverage of the morass and mishaps of the California Department of Motor Vehicles earned him fourth place in the digital public service category. His work includes stories and the popular “California Nation” podcast.
Other awards for The Bee handed out at Saturday’s event in Long Beach included:
- General excellence, third place for its digital platform and fifth place for coverage in the print edition.
- Sports action photo, second place, for Paul Kitagaki Jr.’s coverage of the 49ers.
- Agricultural reporting, fourth place, for Ryan Sabalow’s article on tule elk being targeted for removal at a handful of private dairy farms and cattle ranches that sit inside the federally-owned Point Reyes National Seashore. The story’s accompanying photos and videos by Hector Amezcua also won fifth place for artistic photo.
- Arts & Entertainment coverage, fifth place, for Dale Kasler and Bob Shallit’s obituary of Tower Records’ founder Russ Soloman, who died in March 2018.
- Coverage of youth and education, second place, for Diana Lambert and Anita Chabria’s reporting of race problems at Sacramento area high schools’ elite academic programs, spurred by a student’s racially charged science project, and the inequity seen in advanced programs.
- Investigative reporting, fourth place, for Marjie Lindstrom’s exploration of how much California pays out for sexual harassment by state workers.
- Enterprise digital story, fourth place, for a video series by Akira Olivia Kumamoto, Alyssa Holdenfield, Sharon Okada and David Caraccio on California’s ballot measures.
- Feature digital story, fourth place, for Tony Bizjak, Ryan Lillis, Nathaniel Levine on their story of the real Sacramento “Lady Birds,” native Sacramentans who came home after making it big, through the use of video and words.
- Feature video journalism, fifth place for Akira Olivia Kumamoto’s coverage of Eid al-Adha celebrations in Roseville.
This story was originally published May 5, 2019 at 10:10 AM.