By Miriam Raftery
July 24, 2016 (San Diego’s East County ) – East County Magazine received five awards in the Society of Professional Journalists San Diego Pro Chapter’s 2016 Journalism Awards Contest. Journalists honored include ECM editor Miriam Raftery, reporters Mike Allen and Janis Russell, and sound editors Ed Barrena and Leon Thompson.
Honors include the special First Amendment Award and a $100 prize for our series on county efforts to suppress free speech and first place in the multicultural category for our story on local Chaldeans’ efforts to obtain release of Iraqi Christians in an Otay immigration detention facility, including both written reporting for our website and audio coverage that ran on our radio show on KNSJ.
We also received second place for a political/government story for reporting on Soitec backers hosting a fundraiser for Supervisor Dave Roberts just days after Roberts cast a vote for a controversial Soitec solar project in East County. In addition, ECM received two honorable mentions: one for our news series titled “Ambulance Responses in our Region Raise Alarms” as well as a multicultural story on rising anti-Semitism worldwide.
Below are links to our award-winning coverage:
First Amendment Award: “County Efforts to Suppress Free Speech” series by Miriam Raftery and Janis Russell
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/citizens-oppose-county%E2%80%99s-efforts-curb-free-speech
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/county-shelves-free-speech-regulation-efforts
First Place, Daily Reporting and Writing, Multicultural Story: “East County Chaldeans Plea for Release of Iraqi Christians Detained at Otay,” multimedia coverage by Miriam Raftery, Leon Thompson and Ed Barrena
Second Place, Political/Government Story: “Soitec backers host fundraiser for Roberts—after Roberts cast vote for Soitec,” by Miriam Raftery
Honorable Mention, News Series: “Ambulance Responses In our Region Raise Alarms,” by Mike Allen and Miriam Raftery
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/how-do-countys-response-times-ambulance-service-stack-other-areas
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/county-responds-ambulance-service-questions-0
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/ambulance-updates-announced
Honorable Mention, Daily Reporting and Writing, Multicultural Story: “Rise in violent anti-Semitic attacks worldwide raises alarm,” by Miriam Raftery
Comments
And the award goes to....
Congrats to ECM and everyone who contributes.