2022 Print Division
Print
First Place and BEST IN SHOW
“Disease, Inequity and Resilience in South L.A.”
Joe Mozingo and Francine Orr
Los Angeles Times
Judges comments: With the ravages of COVID-19 as a backdrop, the L.A. Times uses the stories of patients at one hospital to explain how a pandemic only exacerbated long-standing separate and unequal treatment of the residents of South L.A. The reporter’s humanity shines through the tales of all those with whom he writes about.
Nick Oza Best of Show Photography Award
First Place and BEST IN SHOW
“The Capitol Riot”
Kent Nishimura Los Angeles Times
Judges’ comments: The horrors of the January 6th insurrection are captured in Kent Nishimura’s pictures. The insurrection began with a fiery speech by Donald Trump exhorting his followers to stop the certification of election returns by Congress that would result in Joe Biden being named our 46th president. Kent Nishimura’s pictures show the angry mob storming the capitol, breaking through its doors and sending the joint session of Congress into hiding – fearing for their lives. In the mob’s wake lie destruction, death, mayhem and eventual retreat. All shown in this portfolio.
2022 Broadcast Division
Radio
First Place and BEST IN SHOW
“Sounds of the South”
Megan Wahn, Martin Matheny, Devon Zwald and Sarah Train
WGUA FM
Judges’ comments: Understanding why we speak as we do is more than skin deep. WGUA explores the fascinating reasons African American Vernacular English and White Southerner speech patterns overlap, causing them to sound so much alike you can’t distinguish who’s speaking.
Television
First Place and BEST IN SHOW
“Ethiopia: Exposing All The Hallmarks of a Genocide”
CNN staff
CNN
Judges’ comments: Nima Elbagir, Africa correspondent, shouts down, challenges, cows and generally – through patience occasionally, perseverance more often and mostly through sheer force of personality – drives like a spearhead into the killing fields of Ethiopia, overpowering military and rebel opposition to find the relatives of the murdered and get the first-person eyewitness accounts of the horrors of what is the new genocide in one of the world’s most troubled lands. This is extraordinary journalism by a fearless reporter unmatched by her peers. Remember her name. We look forward to much more in her promising career.
2022 Online Division
Online
First Place and BEST IN SHOW
“The Negro League Stars That MLB Kept Out — And Is Finally Recognizing”
ABC News staff
ABC News
Judges’ comments: Major League Baseball officially designated the Negro Leagues as having “Major League” status in December 2020, addressing a prejudice that persisted for more than 70 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line. Two months later, FiveThirtyEight published a remarkable story that used the publication’s facility with statistics and data visualizatons to place the Negro League players in their proper historical context, demonstrating the greatness of these players through statistical analysis and comparison that helps modern fans understand the kind of players these less-known Negro League players were by comparing their stats with current players and Hall of Famers. In FiveThirtyEight’s accessible and engaging visualizations, Josh Gibson is ranked second of all baseball hitters, behind only Babe Ruth. No one can ever recover the opportunities these athletes were denied because of the color of their skin, but FiveThirtyEight shows that we can still give them the place in baseball history they deserve. This work may point to other ways that data can be used to fill in lacunae in our shared history.