Last night, the Los Angeles Press Club held the 61st Annual Southern California Journalism Awards, and Streetsblog Los Angeles and LongBeachize were finalists for nine awards across seven different categories. It was a good night, as Streetsblog won three three awards, and LongBeachize won another.
The Press Club has had "Best Blog" categories for seven years, and for the fourth time Streetsblog Los Angeles was named Best Group Blog. The judges wrote of Streetsblog, "This blog is a great community resource. The team does a great job not only with the writing about the details and concerns related to projects, but also with the compilation of facts and figures, in a way that's reader and viewer-friendly."
The judges wrote, "The writer posed legitimate questions and offered a thought-provoking review of an incident that gained wide-spread media attention. Her writing was crisp, and her commentary was sharp."
The judges wrote, "This three-part series on safe parking lots for people living in their cars is exemplary solutions journalism. Safe Park is an emergency stopgap, and the reporter is clear with readers about that point and does not overclaim, writing about both what is and is not working. The author’s writing style is engaging, building trust and interest by acting as the reader’s surrogate in investigating Safe Park, and in highlighting the humanity of the program's participants. The reporting explores in depth what many readers might assume is the big challenge for Safe Park lots: how to convince neighbors to say yes."
The judges wrote, "Addison's hard work shows on this blog. He apparently read those thousands of pages of reports so we don't have to. Better still, he explained them in a way those affected could grasp. The many links and references to background, including the visuals, provide a fine supplement to Addison's main piece."
Metro is already installing on-bus cameras. Soon comes testing, outreach, then warning tickets. Wilshire/5th/6th and La Brea will be the first bus routes in the bus lane enforcement program.