Sacramento Bee wins 42 California Journalism Awards, including 6 first-place honors

The Sacramento Bee earned six first-place awards and a total of 42 honors at the California Journalism Awards, the annual statewide contest recognizing excellence in journalism. Winners were announced during the California News Publishers Association’s gala Saturday in Los Angeles.

CNPA judges recognized The Bee with 27 top-three finishes for work produced during 2024.

The Bee’s Editorial Board and visual journalists anchored this year’s showing with two first-place entries each in the Division I category, the contest’s large-audience division that includes the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News, among others.

In editorial writing and commentary, the Editorial Board collected several awards, led by LeBron Hill’s first-place win in the category for best opinion columns. Hill’s entry included a sharply argued critique of Donald Trump’s appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists convention and a call for California to confront its abandonment of racial reconciliation following the failure of Proposition 6. Also honored in the category were Robin Epley (second place) and Tom Philp (fourth place) for their commentaries.

Philp took home a first-place award for the Editorial Board’s election endorsement urging voters to refuse Measure C, an increase to Sacramento city’s business operations tax following questions about transparency around the ballot initiatives’ creation. Voters rejected the measure by a 3-to-2 margin. Philp also won fifth-place for his agriculture reporting on California’s overlooked tomato empire, tracing its innovation, production and processing from Sacramento Valley fields to the world’s dinner plates.

The Bee’s visual journalists were honored in all 10 categories for photographs and video last year, including first-place for former deputy visual editor Lezlie Sterling’s news photo coverage of a vigil honoring the life of Keith Jhay “KJ” Frierson, a 10-year-old who was struck down in a Christmas break shooting in Foothill Farms, and summer visual intern Bailey Stover’s news video of Park Fire victims sharing memories of the home they lost. Stover also won second-place in the photo essay category for her work on the Park Fire.

Reporters Theresa Clift and Darrell Smith were awarded first place for their coverage of Sacramento’s mayoral race between Kevin McCarty and Flojaune Cofer that explored homelessness and housing policy and the candidates’ contrasting leadership styles, and the historic significance of the city electing its second Black mayor. David Lightman, based in Washington, D.C., won second place in the same category for his coverage of U.S. Senate candidate Steve Garvey that pulled back the curtain on the former baseball player’s sudden political emergence, and then-unresolved tax liabilities.

Local News Editor Daniel Hunt, working with McClatchy’s Tyler Dukes and Alex Devoid, was awarded first place for his work in developing an artificial intelligence agent to monitor and transcribe emergency radio communications in CNPA’s inaugural Innovative Technology Award.

The Bee won second place or third place in 17 other categories. Other awards from Saturday’s gala included:

▪ Transportation reporter Ariane Lange was awarded third in the contest’s public service journalism and transportation reporting categories for her work chronicling the lives of many of the 32 people killed on city roadways. Her work spurred city leaders to call for a state of emergency to improve infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, leading the city to implement a new quick-build program to improve high-risk roadways.

▪ Visual journalist Renée C. Byer earned second place for her video of homeless campers being evicted from a longtime encampment in Rio Linda and a fifth-place award for a news photo of the clearing of Camp Resolution in North Sacramento.

▪ Clift and data reporter Phillip Reese were honored with a second-place housing and land-use award for a story about the city billing property owners for sidewalk repairs. Clift, Byer and economic mobility reporter Cathie Anderson won third place for homeless reporting for their coverage of homeless issues in the capital region.

▪ Coverage of local government gained a third-place win for Clift, Mathew Miranda and Stephen Hobbs for their yearlong coverage of former City Manager Howard Chan’s failed contract extension. Clift also won the fourth-place slot for her coverage of the resignation of Councilman Sean Loloee following her 2022 reporting that showed he did not live in the North Sacramento district he represented.

▪ Deputy Politics Editor Jenavieve Hatch and visual journalist Hector Amezcua won second place in the profile story competition shedding light on the fractured relationship between a Davis mother and her transgender child, capturing the human toll of California’s escalating culture war over gender identity and parental rights.

▪ Investigative reporter Joe Rubin won second for his work in a series of stories on Cal-OSHA staffing failures, which led to significant hiring in its criminal investigative unit. Rubin also was a fourth-place finisher in in-depth reporting for his series on threats against Sikhs in California who faced threats and violence considered acts of transnational repression by India’s government.

▪ Sportswriters Chris Biderman and Joe Davidson were honored with second for their sports feature story on concussion safety at Sacramento-area high school football programs.

▪ Education reporter Jennah Pendleton won third place in the education and youth category for her work on Sacramento Charter High School, uncovering how the the St. Hope-run school posted high college acceptance rates despite teacher turnover, curriculum gaps, high suspension rates and serious governance violations.

▪ The local reporting team earned two awards for breaking-news reporting: third place for coverage of the shooting at Feather River Adventist School near Oroville, led by reporters Ishani Desai, Jake Goodrick and photographer Amezcua; and fifth place for daily coverage of the arson that destroyed Chico’s historic Bidwell Mansion, led by reporter Darrell Smith and editor Hunt.

▪ The Bee’s audience and engagement team — including producers Camryn Dadey and J.J. Juarez — won second, third and fifth place in the newsletter category for their work on last year’s election newsletter, which helped guide readers through the November election; La Abeja, a newsletter written by and for California Latinos and The Canopy, a weekly email highlighting news and information that helps our readers live happy, safe and healthy lives in the capital.

▪ Sportswriter Jason Anderson garnered a third-place award for coverage of Matt Barnes being removed from NBC Sports California coverage of the Kings.

▪ Reporters Rosalio Ahumada and Miranda won a fourth-place nod for their contributions to McClatchy’s Beyond the Border series, which examined growing divisions within immigrant communities and the national fallout from politicized immigration policy.

▪ In addition to placing fourth as a team for photojournalism, The Bee’s visual journalists Byer, Amezcua, Sterling, Stover, Paul Kitagaki Jr., José Luis Villegas and Nathaniel Levine won accolades in the sports-action photo (Kitagaki), photo essay (Kitagaki and Villegas), feature photo (Amezcua), artistic photo (Sterling; Bailey) and video journalism categories (Kitagaki; Villegas; Amezcua).

▪ Levine and Hunt were also awarded second place for their design work on The Bee’s printed front page.

▪ Bee freelance correspondent Graham Womack won a fourth-place fine arts writing award for his feature on Sacramento landmarks designed by Leonard F. Starks.

McClatchy’s California newsrooms — including The Fresno Bee, The Modesto Bee, The Tribune of San Luis Obispo and the Merced Sun-Star — earned 99 awards in all. The Tribune took home 34 awards, including General Excellence in Division 3.

Several Sacramento-area publications earned recognition at Saturday’s dinner, including:

▪ Comstock’s magazine — led by publisher Winnie Comstock-Carlson and editor Judy Farah — secured General Excellence in Division 5. The business-focused publication garnered 20 awards in all.

▪ The Sacramento Observer — a longstanding voice for the region’s Black community led by publisher Larry Lee and editor Stephen Magagnini — received seven awards, including first place for “’It’s OK’ Brotha,” its summer community engagement fair.

▪ The Octagon, the student newspaper of Sacramento Country Day School, achieved General Excellence in its division and amassed 21 awards across multiple categories.

▪ The Folsom Telegraph, part of Gold Country Media, was recognized with five awards; the Auburn Journal won three.

In the General Excellence category, the Los Angeles Times (Division 1), The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa (Division 2), Monterey County Weekly (Division 4), Voice of OC (Division 6) and 48 Hills of San Francisco (Division 7) were each recognized for their contributions.

A full list of winners is available on CNPA’s website.