On Saturday night, the Los Angeles Press Club held its annual awards banquet honoring the best journalism in Southern California from the previous year. This year, Streetsblog L.A.'s team were finalists in six categories and were honored in the top three in all six, including top honors for Best Blog and for Joe Linton in non-political commentary in an online publication.
The "Best Group Blog" category has only existed for eight years, and Streetsblog has won it five of those eight years, swapping wins with the blog team at Variety Magazine. The judges comments on Streetsblog's work noted both the expertise that Joe and Sahra bring to the website every day, but also for amplifying the voices of people and groups too often left out of discussion on how the city and region should grow.
"Streetsblog Los Angeles shows the power of digital journalism. By providing daily coverage focused keenly on L.A. transportation, Streetsblog holds the powerful to account on an issue that's often used to serve the wealthy and well-connected rather than everyday people looking to travel from Point A to Point B safely and efficiently."
Considering those five wins, it's hard to believe that this is the first time Linton has won an award for his excellent ongoing writing, research, and reporting. The Press Club awarded him first place in the category of "Local Non-Political Commentary" for "Metro/Caltrans Neighborhood Erasure along the Lower 5 Freeway." In their notes accompanying the award, the judges praised Linton's meticulousness, stating, "The amount of research that went into this is incredible."
Streetsblog's other honors included:
Local Political Government Reporting, any medium
3rd place for Sahra Sulaiman's "Anatomy of an Officer-Involved Explosion: A Post-Mortem on LAPD’s E. 27th Street Fireworks Blast"
General News, Online
3rd place for Damien Newton's "United Caltrans Tenants Oppose State Legislation That Would Guide Home Sales, Possibly Lead to Evictions"
Hard News Feature, Online
3rd place for Joe Linton's "Pomona Families Holding Out Against Caltrans/Metro Home Demolitions for 71 Widening"
Local Political Commentary, Online
2nd place for Damien Newton's "Garcetti Moves to Bring “Hundreds” of Unhoused into Project Roomkey with New Federal Funds"
Streetsblog congratulates all the nominees and winners from this year's Press Club awards and sends a special thank you to all our readers, donors, advertisers, and grantors for their support over the years. If you're moved to make a donation to support our work, all the details on how to do that can be found here.
