The Los Angeles Times Captures 11 Best of the West Honors
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The Los Angeles Times has earned a total of 11 first-, second- and third-place awards in the Best of the West journalism competition. The contest rewards journalistic excellence and promotes freedom of information. It is administered by First Amendment Funding Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation, and drew more than 1,100 entries from journalists in the 14 states from the Rockies west to Alaska and Hawaii.
Among this year’s honorees from The Times: Staff Writers Harriet Ryan and Matt Hamilton won first place in the investigative reporting category for “Golden State Injustice,” which detailed how famed trial lawyer Tom Girardi’s corruption exposed the secret world of private judges.
The competition’s judges called the entry “a blueprint for needed reforms” and noted that “[there is] so much good, revelatory, jaw-dropping reporting here about corrupt lawyers and failures by the people expected to either keep them honest or punish them.”
Here’s the full list of honorees from The Times:
Investigative Reporting
First Place: Matt Hamilton and Harriet Ryan, “Golden State Injustice”
Arts and Entertainment Writing
First Place (tie): Stacy Perman, “A child star at 7, in prison at 22. Then she vanished. What happened to Lora Lee Michel?” and Amy Kaufman and Meg James, “The man who played Hollywood: Inside Randall Emmett’s crumbling empire”
Feature Slideshow
First Place: Christina House, “Pregnant, homeless and living in a tent: Meet McKenzie”
Second Place: Francine Orr, “The fight against COVID, a chaplain says, unfolded on ‘sacred ground’”
Breaking News Reporting
Second Place: Staff of the Los Angeles Times, for coverage of racist comments in a leaked tape that upended L.A. politics
General Interest Column Writing
Second Place: Anita Chabria, for columns on such topics as drug use, farmworker rights and mental illness
Video Storytelling
Second Place: Mark E. Potts, Erik Himmelsbach-Weinstein and Kent Nishimura, “Are the Savannah Bananas the future of baseball?”
Business and Financial Reporting
Third Place: Jessica Roy, “My wallet was stolen at a bar. Then my identity theft nightmare began”
Online Presentation
Third Place: Staff of the Los Angeles Times, “Shape Your L.A.” civic engagement tool
Sports Reporting
Third Place: David Wharton, “Meet the Savannah Bananas”
View the complete contest results.
