Kelly Davis is San Diego SPJ’s 2023 Journalist of the Year

The San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is thrilled to announce our 2023 Journalist of the Year, freelance reporter Kelly Davis, for her continued attention to the San Diego County jail system.

Davis first began covering jail deaths in 2013 while working at San Diego City Beat, revealing with then-colleague Dave Maass that the county had a higher inmate mortality rate than any other large jail system in the state.

Davis’ digging continued despite significant pushback and pressure, including via a subpoena from attorneys representing the county. In 2019, she co-authored an investigative three-part series in the Union-Tribune, “Dying Behind Bars.” The six-month reporting project examined the unusually high death toll in the local jails and the failure of officials to take action.

After the series published, two members of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors hired a consultant to conduct an internal review, which validated the reporting. The series also prompted citizen groups to focus attention on the jail system and push for reforms.

As deaths continued, Davis continued her reporting. Her coverage eventually prompted separate investigations into the jails by the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board and the California State Auditor.

The findings of the state audit, which were released in February 2022, once again validated Davis’ years of journalism and also called for new legislation to improve jail conditions.In 2022, Assemblymember Akilah Weber introduced the Saving Lives in Custody Act, which was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. In 2023, state Sen. Toni Atkins has reintroduced the bill to improve jail oversight and mental health care in jails, citing Davis’ work.

The reporting has had other effects on San Diego County. Sheriff Bill Gore announced his resignation on the day the state audit published and forced the issue of jail conditions front and center in the 2022 election for his replacement.

Union-Tribune reporter Jeff McDonald, who co-authored the “Dying Behind Bars” series with Davis, said he is grateful to have worked with her on the 2019 project and the reporting that has followed since.

“Kelly has made San Diego County a better place by almost single-handedly forcing the issue of jail deaths and other negligent practices in local jails to the forefront of the public agenda,” McDonald said. “We are so much better as a community for her efforts, and she continues to make me proud to be her collaborator and friend.”

San Diego SPJ has a tradition of not selecting its own board members as Journalist of the Year. However, as the impact of Davis’ reporting continues to grow, the other board members agreed that we could no longer ignore the significance of her journalism to the San Diego community.

“Kelly’s years-long investigation of deaths and conditions in local jails directly inspired – and likely will continue to inspire – significant change,” SD-SPJ board president Lisa Halverstadt said. “Kelly’s fellow board members decided it was time to recognize her game-changing work and its undeniable impact.”

Please join us in celebrating Davis and our other award winners at Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens in Liberty Station on Tuesday, June 20, from 6 to 9 p.m. 

You can check out our list of award winners here and buy tickets here

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Congratulations to this year’s award winners!

The judges have judged and more than 150 (woo-hoo!) San Diego journalists produced award-winning work in 2022. Check the list below for your name and we’ll see you at our annual banquet at Stone Brewing on Tuesday, June 20, where you can pick up your award. Click here for details and a link to purchase tickets. We’ll be announcing first, second and third place winners, and winners of our special awards, at the banquet.

Join the San Diego SPJ Board!

We’re currently seeking candidates interested in running for a seat on our chapter’s board. Board members are involved in planning and executing events, putting on our annual awards banquet and advocating for local journalists. We meet on the first Tuesday of every month in the evening. If you’re an SPJ member, you’re eligible to run.

If you’d like to run for the board, please submit your candidacy statement, including any biographical information you would like to share (200-word limit) by 5 p.m. on Friday, June 2 to spjsandiego@gmail.com

Election results will be announced by early July. Need to renew your membership? Click here.

Party, Journo Style, at SPJ-SD’s Annual Awards Celebration

There’s nothing like an outdoor event in June in San Diego — the sunset, the weather, the summer vibes. Come join us on Tuesday, June 20, for our annual awards dinner and celebration. We’re heading back to Stone Brewing in Liberty Station for a fun, relaxed outdoor gathering, full of good food and drink in the company of your favorite journalists. Pre-sale tickets (through May 19) are $60 for SPJ members and $65 for nonmembers and include a tasty food spread and dessert. Drink tokens, available on our ticket website, are $6 for craft sodas and $9 for a beer, wine or hard seltzer.

The evening will include a short program when we’ll announce the winners of our special awards and honor our Journalist of the Year (TBA). Once again we’ll be holding a silent auction, so come prepared to drop some extra cash on one of our fabulous items.

We’ll be announcing our awards winners soon, so keep an eye on this space.

As in past years, first-place winners will receive a plaque and second and third place winners will receive a certificate. You can pick up your awards at the event.

When: Tuesday, June 20, from 6 to 9 p.m.

Where: Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens @ Liberty Station, 2816 Historic Decatur Road, Unit 116, Building 12

Buy tickets via our ticket website.

Who Should be San Diego’s Journalist of the Year?

Every year, the San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists honors a local journalist whose work had a major impact in our San Diego community. We’re now accepting nominations for the 2023 journalist of the year. We ask that nominations focus on a journalist’s coverage or work on a particular story or topic in 2022. Submissions will be accepted through Friday, April 28.

Recent awardees include Vicente Calderón of Tijuana Press, Union-Tribune’s Paul Sisson, KPBS’s Claire Trageser and author and columnist Jean Guerrero.

To nominate someone, click here. The winner will be announced along with our other awards later this year and celebrated at our awards reception on June 20 at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens – Liberty Station. More details on the ceremony to come!

Panel Discussion: Journalists Share ‘Lessons From The Newsroom’

Join the Society of Professional Journalists’ San Diego Pro and San Diego State University chapters for a lively discussion featuring four longtime San Diego journalists who will answer questions, offer advice, share stories and reflect on their careers. Come prepared with questions — this is your chance to ask them anything — and get ready to laugh and learn.

What: Lessons from the Newsroom

When: 6 p.m. Thursday, April 13, 2023, at the Professional Studies and Fine Arts Building, Room 325, at San Diego State University, Campanile Mall.

Tell us what you want to hear: RSVP and submit your questions and topic ideas in advance.

Parking: We recommend parking in SDSU parking structure P12 (levels 3-8), which are visitor parking spots and closest to the Fine Arts Building. You will be instructed to download an app on your smartphone to pay. It should cost around $3 an hour. (Please see below for a campus map.)

Live Streaming: For those who can’t attend in person, we will livestream the event and will send the link around to everyone who submits an RSVP!

Participants:

(Moderator) Jakob McWhinney is a lifelong San Diegan who discovered his passion for journalism during the COVID-19 pandemic. He now serves on the board of SPJ’s San Diego Pro chapter and works as the education reporter at Voice of San Diego.

Dana Littlefield is public safety editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune and an adjunct lecturer in the Journalism and Media Studies Department at San Diego State University. Before becoming an editor, she was a reporter at the U-T for 17 years and covered state courts for most of that time.

Jeff McDonald is a member of the investigative reporting team at The San Diego Union-Tribune and was named Journalist of the Year in 2015 by San Diego SPJ. He writes about government and institutional misconduct and waste in San Diego County and beyond.

Andrew Dyer spent 10 years enlisted in the Navy and served as ship’s company on two aircraft carriers. He covered the military for The San Diego Union-Tribune and is currently the military and veterans reporter at KPBS.

Adam Racusin is an investigative reporter at ABC 10News in San Diego. He set his sights on helping consumers and his reporting has led to people getting their money back, bad actors getting locked up and lawmakers promising new legislation.

Congratulations to our annual Wall, Window and Sunshine and awards winners!

Every year, the San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists honors public officials, individuals and agencies who did the best (and the worst) job of ensuring that government is accessible and transparent. We’re proud to announce this year’s award winners and will celebrate them with a reception at Mujeres Brewing in Logan Heights (1983 Julian Ave.) from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, March 15. Light refreshments will be served. An RSVP is required. Please note that this is an outdoor venue, so dress appropriately.

Window Award: Paul Parker

SD-SPJ’s annual Window Award goes to a person or public agency that has prioritized transparency and access to information. This year’s recipient is Paul Parker, executive officer of the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board, or CLERB, which provides oversight of the San Diego Sheriff’s and Probation departments, including investigating deaths in custody and making policy recommendations. Under previous executive officers there was little engagement between CLERB and the community and strict rules about communication with the media. Under Parker’s leadership, CLERB has become a more proactive, responsive organization, which helps bolster the public trust in the review board’s mission. Parker has proactively met with community groups and organizations to discuss how CLERB functions and the role of oversight. He’s also authored more detailed, insightful annual reports. Perhaps most important, though, are the summaries of cases the board’s investigative staff provide for review each month in which they include every morsel of information they’re legally allowed to provide. Parker regularly meets with families of people who’ve died in jail and, last year oversaw virtual town halls about in-custody deaths and the Center for Policing Equity’s report on racial disparities in traffic stops and use of force. Parker is also very responsive to media requests and each month posts to CLERB’s website his communications with board members about important updates and news articles concerning CLERB and law enforcement oversight. We hope other public officials and agencies take note.

Wall Award: San Diego County 

The Wall Award goes to the person or public agency that made it difficult for journalists to do their jobs by ignoring information requests or otherwise compromising the public’s right to know. Unfortunately, this award will again go to San Diego County, marking the third time in six years. Reporters from multiple news organizations throughout the region continue to struggle to gather basic information from the county’s communications team in a timely manner. The communications office, led by Michael Workman, typically requires reporters to submit requests through email and often provides terse responses that only raise more questions. Officials leading county agencies and initiatives are rarely made available for interviews, which could provide reporters — and thus the public — with more context and insight on their work. Public records requests can  sit unanswered for unreasonable lengths of time. We became hopeful for real change when the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to establish a new transparency advisory committee, and when officials agreed to create an online public request portal to track and manage requests. But we have not seen the shift to a more transparent county government that the committee presented and the request portal is taking longer to roll out than we would have liked. The same problems continue and it’s happening at a detriment to the community. We hope this award will remind San Diego County that the public deserves transparency.

Sunshine Award: Trust SD Coalition

SD-SPJ’s Sunshine Award goes to a journalist or community member who went above and beyond to make the government more transparent and hold elected officials accountable. This year’s recipient is the TRUST SD Coalition, an alliance of 30-plus community organizations that advocates for government transparency in surveillance.

The coalition formed in 2019 to address the city of San Diego’s “smart” street lights, which were being used for surveillance without the public’s knowledge or consent. Since then, TRUST SD has written two city of San Diego ordinances that outline how the city acquires and operates surveillance technology, such as streetlight cameras, noise-detecting microphones, body-worn cameras and license plate readers. 

TRUST SD’s first ordinance, adopted by the City Council last April, established a privacy advisory board to provide community oversight on surveillance proposals, with seats reserved for residents who have been historically affected. Its second, called the Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology ordinance, was adopted last August. It ensures that any proposed surveillance measures are reviewed by the City Council initially and annually, and guarantees that these meetings allow feedback from the public, with sessions held in districts that will be affected. 

These achievements, in addition to the coalition’s ongoing educational and advocacy work, have significantly improved transparency and protected San Diegans’ civil liberties.

SD-SPJ scholarship contest is now open

This year, SPJ San Diego will award up to five $1,500 scholarships to local college students in the categories of print, photojournalism and video/audio/multimedia. We are also awarding one $1,400 scholarship in honor of former North County Times columnist Agnes Diggs and one $1,000 scholarship in honor of former San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Bradley J. Fikes.

The deadline for scholarship applications is 9 p.m. Monday, April 17, 2023. See below for the full contest rules.

If you have any questions, email sdspjcollege@gmail.com.

Enter to win a print, photography or multimedia scholarship.
Enter to win the Agnes Diggs scholarship.
Enter to win the Bradley J. Fikes scholarship.

San Diego SPJ launches its 2023 Journalism Contest **DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MARCH 6, 9 P.M.**

Deadline extended! Submit your entries to the ’23 contest by March 6 at 9 p.m.

The 2023 SPJ San Diego Area Journalism Competition recognizes outstanding work by San Diego-area student and professional journalists published or broadcast during the calendar year 2022. Our contest opens early this year — entries will be accepted beginning Monday, Jan. 30, through Monday, Feb. 27. Entries submitted by 9 p.m. PST on Monday, Feb. 20, will get $10 off their entry fees ($5 off for students) in every category but our Distinguished Coverage Award and Excellence in Journalism Award. Entry fees for those two categories will remain the same.

This year’s Distinguished Coverage Award will honor stories about the cost of living in San

Diego. Each outlet that produced reporting related to this topic should submit its best story, series, or segment, along with an essay of no more than 500 words on why the coverage merits recognition. This award is open to all outlets and the fee to enter is $50.

Submit your entries using the BetterBNC Media Awards platform — we’ve added several new categories this year that we hope will offer more journalists the chance to have their work honored. To register or enter the contest, open a new browser window or tab to http://www.betterbnc.com. Keep this window open to refer to as you submit your awards.

If you have entered awards via the BetterBNC platform before — either for the SD-SPJ competition or for the SD Press Club awards — you should already be in the system, and you just have to select the 2023 SPJ awards contest.

All contest entries must be submitted online via the BetterBNC platform and must be entered by or on behalf of the individuals who produced the work and must identify each individual involved in producing the work.

Students: This year’s scholarship contest will be run separately from the San Diego Area Journalism Competition. Please stay tuned for additional information to be posted later this week. 

Below are directions for preparing and submitting entries. If you have questions, please contact Terry Williams at 619-743-3669 or spj.sandiego@cox.net.

Best of luck to all of our applicants!

How to Enter
Contest Guidelines and Categories 2023
FAQs 2023

Who Pushed (or Blocked) Transparency in 2022?

It’s that time again. The San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is preparing to continue our annual spring tradition of recognizing the most helpful — and least helpful — public agencies and officials. We’re now seeking nominations.

Our Wall Award will go to the person or public agency that made it hardest for journalists to do their jobs in 2022, ignoring requests or otherwise compromising the public’s right to know.

The Window Award will go to the person or public agency that most prioritized transparency and the public’s right to know in 2022.

And our Sunshine Award will go to a journalist or community member who worked the hardest to make government more transparent and hold elected officials accountable.

In recent years, we have also awarded Skylight Awards to San Diegans who have devoted their careers to championing the public’s right to know. 

Submit nominations here by Feb. 6, 2023. You can read up on last year’s winners (and losers) here.

Stay tuned for more details on this year’s SD-SPJ Walls and Windows celebration in the weeks to come. 

San Diego SPJ Announces Changes to its Annual Journalism Awards

San Diego SPJ is kicking off its annual journalism contest a little early this year. We figured your best stories from 2022 will be fresh in your mind and we’re excited to introduce some new awards categories. The official contest launch date is Monday, Jan. 30. We’ll accept submissions through Monday, Feb. 27. Early bird pricing will be available through Monday, Feb. 20, and regular entry pricing takes effect on Tuesday, Feb. 21.

Here’s all the information you need to enter:

How to enter
Contest guidelines
Contest FAQ


Stay tuned for more details later this month. We’ll announce the contest launch here on our website, via email and on social media — including a link to the contest website — so keep an eye out.

Students: Please note that we are not launching our scholarship contest on Jan. 30. It will kick off at a later date, to be announced.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email spjsandiego@gmail.com.

Save the Date: San Diego Media Holiday Mixer

Join San Diego SPJ, the San Diego Association of Black Journalists and the San Diego Press Club for a fun holiday mixer!

When: Wednesday, Dec. 7 from 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Where: The Church by The Lost Abbey, 1313 J St. in East Village

The space is mostly outdoors, so we recommend bringing a sweater. We’ll provide pizza and dessert. Drinks are available for purchase at the bar. Street parking is available, or you can park in the Padres’ Tailgate Park parking lot.

Please RSVP by Monday, Dec. 5.

San Diego SPJ selected as Society of Professional Journalists Large Chapter of the Year

In addition to being honored with two Society of Professional Journalists’ Circle of Excellence Awards for our work on newsroom diversity and First Amendment advocacy, San Diego SPJ was thrilled to receive the Large Chapter of the Year award at SPJ’s 2022 annual conference. Board members Bella Ross and Jakob McWhinney accepted the award on our behalf.


Judges noted SD-SPJs newsroom diversity survey, describing it as “a challenging feat to accomplish because some newsrooms wanted to refrain from participating” and the chapter’s work on open government issues, including board members’ meeting with staff from the San Diego mayor’s office regarding the city’s email retention policy. That advocacy work that led to the city implementing the longest email-retention policy in the state. Also mentioned was SD-SPJ’s new mentorship program (keep an eye on this space for the program’s second round) and the continuation of our annual Wall, Window and Sunshine awards, among other chapter activities.

SD-SPJ wants to thank our members for their continued support. Y’all are the best! Not a member? Join here.

San Diego SPJ Receives Two National Honors

Stranger Things Reaction GIF by SAG Awards - Find & Share on GIPHY

Your San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists learned this week that it’s being recognized with two SPJ Circle of Excellence Awards for its work on newsroom diversity and advocacy for government transparency. San Diego SPJ is one of six chapters in the nation to be awarded a Circle of Excellence Award this year.

SPJ recognized the San Diego chapter for delivering San Diego County’s first-ever newsroom diversity survey and various efforts to ensure access to public records and information. You can read more about how we earned this recognition here

Are you an SPJ member? If not, consider becoming one to help us continue this important work. You can join here.

Mark your calendars: The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Festival of Journalism is Oct. 15


Los Angeles Times photojournalist Marcus Yam

On Saturday, Oct. 15, the San Diego Union-Tribune will hold its inaugural Festival of Journalism. The daylong event (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) will feature keynote speakers, panel discussions on headline topics and a screening of the documentary “Journalism at Risk.”

Keynote speakers:

  • Steve Sebelius, politics editor and columnist at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, who’ll discuss the legacy of his former colleague, Jeff German. German was killed last month by a public official he was investigating.
  • Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Marcus Yam, one of the last western journalists to leave Afghanistan after the country fell to the Taliban, will share stories about what it’s like on the frontlines of conflict.
  • Justin Brooks, director and co-founder of the California Innocence Project, will talk about how biases and misinformation can cost people their freedom and, in some cases, their lives.

Panels topics include the 101 Ash St. debacle, the high rate of deaths in San Diego jails, the gang rape accusations involving SDSU football players and firsthand accounts from journalists working in Tijuana.

The event is free and open to the public. It will be held in the Tula Community Center at San Diego State University (6126 Montezuma Road).

Check out the full schedule and register to attend. We’ll see you there!

Lunch with Major Garrett and celebrate the launch of FACTLY

On Saturday, Oct. 22, from noon to 1:30 p.m., join the Coronado Public Library and San Diego State University’s School of Journalism & Media Studies for a luncheon to recognize U.S. Media Literacy Week. Hear about the work of the Community News Team Project, which will be celebrating the launch of its website, FACTLY (Facts, Accountability, Clarity, Truth, Library and You). The luncheon will also feature a keynote address by Major Garrett, chief Washington correspondent for CBS News and co-author of The Big Truth: Upholding Democracy in the Age of “The Big Lie.”

The event is free, but you must RSVP to iweston@coronado.ca.us by Saturday, Oct. 1.

Welcome to our new board members!

San Diego SPJ is excited to welcome five new members to our board and wish a fond farewell and a big thanks to departing board members Matthew Halgren, Kendra Sitton, Jared Whitlock and Lynn Walsh.

Click here to see a list of current board members, including our executive board, and their contact information.

Cody Dulaney

Cody Dulaney is an investigative reporter with inewsource. His focus is on social impact and government accountability, with an emphasis on housing, homelessness and law enforcement. Cody’s work revealed mismanagement and neglect in COVID-19 hotel shelters run by San Diego County, and exposed half of the county’s local police agencies for breaking state law by sharing drivers’ location data across the nation. Prior to moving to San Diego, he worked on investigative teams with newspapers in Florida and South Carolina.

Jakob McWhinney

Jakob McWhinney is a multimedia journalist born and raised in San Diego. He returned to community college during the COVID-19 pandemic and discovered a passion for journalism. By his second semester with City College’s City Times Media, he was appointed operations manager of the entire student news organization, which includes a digital news site, a radio station and a weekly TV news show. During that semester he was also hired as an intern at Voice of San Diego, where he wrote stories about homelessness, COVID-19 testing operations and COVID-era right-wing organizing. He was subsequently hired as Voice’s Education Reporter.

He strives to communicate to audiences why — in this most convoluted and apathetic of times — they should care about the world around them and the people who inhabit it. He hopes to use journalism to uplift and empower his hometown by communicating complex issues in digestible ways.

Adam Racusin

Adam Racusin is part of the investigative team at ABC 10News in San Diego. He covers everything from the courts and politics to consumer issues across San Diego County. His reporting has led to getting people their money back, sending bad actors behind bars, new policies at government agencies, and encouraging lawmakers to promise new legislation. Adam is also a watchdog over the child welfare system in San Diego County. Since joining 10News, Adam’s work has been honored by the San Diego Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the San Diego Press Club, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Pacific Southwest Chapter, the Radio Television Digital News Association, and the National Headliner Awards. He has reported in television markets from Montana to Texas and several spots in between.

Bella Ross

Bella Ross is a community engagement specialist for The San Diego Union-Tribune’s opinion section and member of the Editorial Board, a role she started in November 2021. She was born in Phoenix, Arizona and also lived in North Carolina before moving to north San Diego County in 2015. She previously worked as a web producer for inewsource, managing social media content and newsletters, and also freelanced covering local government, schools and equity issues for publications such as Voice of San Diego, CalMatters, North Coast Current and Scripps Ranch News. She graduated from San Diego State University with degrees in journalism and political science in May 2020. She also served as the editor in chief of the campus newspaper, The Daily Aztec.

Steve Walsh

Steve Walsh is the military and veterans reporter at KPBS. He works with American Homefront, a national collaboration between public media stations and NPR, which looks at military and vet issues. Before KPBS, Walsh worked for Lakeshore Public Radio in Gary, Ind., and Chicago Public Radio, where he was a host producer with Vocalo, a project to open public media to diverse audiences. As a print reporter for the Post-Tribune, Walsh covered the Indiana statehouse and was embedded twice with U.S. troops during the Iraq War.

Watch the video from the annual Bench/Bar/Media event

SD-SPJ was honored to be a co-sponsor (along with the San Diego County Bar Association and the San Diego County Superior Court) of this year’s annual Bench/Bar/Media panel discussion. The topic was timely and the panelists provided important insight into the past, present and future of the Supreme Court. If you weren’t able to join us, read a summary of the topic and short bios of the panelists and watch the video from the event.

Thanks for a great night! And check out our full list of winners!

Thanks to everyone who attended our 2022 awards reception last night. It was another great opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues, congratulate the winners of our journalism contest and listen to an amazing speech by our Journalist of the Year, Vicente Calderon. Thanks to Stone Brewing – Liberty Station for providing great service and a beautiful venue!

Click here for a full list of winners, and read comments from judges on the first-place awardees. If you were unable to attend and would like to grab your 1st place plaque or 2nd or 3rd place certificates, please email us at spjsandiego@gmail.com. Congratulations to all the winners and we’ll see you next year!

Congrats to our winners! Join us to celebrate!

Another year, another chance to hang out with your favorite reporters and celebrate your hard work over the last year. Due to popular demand, we’re heading back to Stone Brewing in Liberty Station for a fun, relaxed outdoor gathering, full of good food and drink, twinkly lights and the occasional overheard plane (“the Point Loma pause,” they call it). Pre-sale tickets are $25 for SPJ members and $30 for nonmembers and include a tasty food spread and dessert. Drink tokens, available on our ticket website, are $6 for craft sodas and $11 for a beer or wine (lemonade, iced tea and water are complimentary).

The evening will include a short program when we’ll announce the winners of our special awards and honor our Journalist of the Year, Vicente Calderón. And the silent auction is back, so get your lucky bidding pen ready.

Congratulations to all our winners! (See below for a full list.) It’s been another difficult year and you deserve to celebrate!

As in past years, first-place winners will receive a plaque and second and third place winners will receive a certificate. You can pick up your awards at the event.

When: Thursday, July 21, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Where: Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens @ Liberty Station, 2816 Historic Decatur Road, Unit 116, Building 12

Cost: Presale tickets are $25 per person for SPJ members (join or renew your membership), $30 per person for nonmembers. After July 15 at 12 p.m., prices go up to $30 for members and $35 for nonmembers. You can also purchase tickets at the event ($30 members; $35 nonmembers). Drink tokens ($6 or $11) are available on the ticket website and at the event.

Email us with any questions and we look forward to seeing you!

Vicente Calderón is SPJ San Diego’s 2022 Journalist of the Year

The San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is proud to announce our 2022 Journalist of the Year, Tijuana Press editor Vicente Calderón.

For many years, San Diego journalists whose beat includes the border have turned to Calderón for assistance navigating the complexities of the region. They’ve always found an enthusiastic guide, willing to go above and beyond to help his colleagues. Veteran border journalist Sandra Dibble described Calderón as a “journalistic institution.”

In addition to reporting on Tijuana for his online news site, Tijuana Press, Calderón has collaborated with San Diego journalists on important stories about the San Diego-Tijuana region. He’s currently working with Voice of San Diego’s MacKenzie Elmer on an ambitious series of stories exploring the environmental impacts of the Tijuana River.

“Vicente has been a bridge between San Diego and Tijuana’s journalism communities for so many years,” said Scott Lewis, Voice of San Diego’s editor and CEO.

“He has always been there for me and my staff when we need to make a connection or pull off a story with implications for both sides of the border,” Lewis said. “I cannot fathom how many fewer things we would know without him.”

Wendy Fry, who covers the border for the San Diego Union-Tribune, said Calderón “works tirelessly to cover so many key issues affecting both sides of the border.”

Fry noted that Calderón has continued his reporting despite the dangers faced by Mexican journalists.

“At a time when Tijuana journalists are grappling with the devastating loss of two of our colleagues, and the fear of violence becoming a consequence of their coverage, Calderón has been brave,” Fry said. “He’s a leader in responsibly and ethically pushing authorities for answers and justice. He also generously takes time out of running his own news site to mentor colleagues and help explain Mexico’s realities to San Diego journalists because he genuinely cares about the border region being covered accurately and responsibly.”

Dibble also pointed out that Calderón has persisted in his reporting despite the numerous challenges faced by Mexican journalists, including low pay, threats to their personal safety and pressure to back off certain stories.

“Despite all these challenges, he has persisted in a profession he loves deeply,” she said.

“Among his Tijuana colleagues, he has been unrelenting in his demands for accuracy and fairness, and unyielding in his calls for high ethical standards,” Dibble said. “In cases of abuses and attacks against journalists, Vicente has stood firm in his calls for justice.”

Dibble said she’s often turned to Calderón to get a deeper understanding of border region politics.

“I have witnessed his generosity with others as well — seen him help outsiders gain context, but also watched him show the way to new generation of Mexican journalists,” she said. “Vicente is independent, idealistic, courageous, generous — what more can one ask for in a journalist?”

Celebrate Calderón and our other award winners at Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens in Liberty Station on Thursday, July 21, from 6:30 to 9:30. We’ll launch our ticket website and a list of award winners on July 6, so check back. 

Congratulations to our scholarship winners!

Each year, the San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists awards scholarships to local college students and recent graduates who show keen journalism chops. We’re always impressed and this year was no different. Higher ed is expensive, and we hope to make it a little more affordable for these future reporters. Below are our winners and a piece of work they’re particularly proud of. Celebrate them on July 21 at our annual awards reception at Stone Brewing in Point Loma.

Print Journalism Scholarships

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Jakob McWhinney, San Diego City College. Read Jakob’s story, “How a San Diego Church Became a Nexus of Anti-Vaccine, Anti-COVID Lockdown and Right-wing Political Organizing.

Alfaro Headshot
Elaine Alfaro, Point Loma Nazarene University. Read Lainie’s opinion piece, “For young people like me, managing money is like a social media experience.”

niloufar
Niloufar Shahbandi, UC San Diego. Read Niloufar’s story, “Workers Protest Poor Working Conditions at HDH.”

*****

Multimedia Journalism Scholarships

maritza
Maritza Camacho, San Diego State University. Listen to the first episode of Maritza’s NPR syndicated podcast, Chronic Catastrophe.

katy
Katy Stegall, San Diego State University. Check out Katy’s multimedia report, “San Diego County looks for solutions as fentanyl deaths continue to rise.”

*****

Bradley J. Fikes Scholarship (in honor of San Diego Union-Tribune science journalist Brad Fikes, who died in December 2019)

esteban
Esteban Preciado, Southwestern College. Read Esteban’s compelling piece about communing with Bwindi Mountain Gorillas (flip through to page 17)

San Diego SPJ Board Elections Underway

Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.com

Now that we’ve all gotten through California’s primary election, it’s time for San Diego SPJ members to vote.

Members of the San Diego Pro Chapter are asked to vote for up to seven candidates running for the local board by Thursday, June 23 at 11:59 p.m. Ballots are set to go out on Thursday, June 9.

This year’s candidates are board incumbents Jill Castellano, Kelly Davis and Kristy Totten and newcomers Cody Dulaney, Jakob McWhinney, Bella Ross and Steve Walsh. You can read more about all of the candidates here

Didn’t receive a ballot in your inbox? Email us at spjsandiego (at) gmail.com

Who Should be San Diego’s Journalist of the Year?

Every year, the San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists honors a local journalist whose work had a major impact in our San Diego community. We’re now accepting nominations for the 2022 journalist of the year. We ask that the nomination focuses on a journalist’s coverage of a particular story or topic in 2021.

Recent awardees include the Union-Tribune’s Paul Sisson, KPBS’s Claire Trageser and author and columnist Jean Guerrero.

To nominate someone, click here. The winner will be announced along with our other awards in June and celebrated at our awards reception in July. More details on the ceremony to come!

SPJ-SD’s Annual Journalism Awards Contest Kicks off Monday, April 4

UPDATE! THE CONTEST DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MONDAY, MAY 9, AT NOON.

Need to renew your SPJ membership to take advantage of our special membership entry fees? Through Friday, May 6, SPJ is offering $25 off the regular membership price of $75 (the website still advertises the cost as $75, but trust us — it’s $50).

CALLING ALL WINNERS!

The 2022 SPJ San Diego Area Journalism Competition will recognize outstanding work by San Diego student and professional journalists published or broadcast during the 2021 calendar year. Contest entries will be accepted Monday, April 4, through Monday, May 2 at 9 p.m. May 9 at noon, PST. Awards submitted by 9 p.m. PST on Monday, April 25, will get a discounted entry rate (please see instructions for actual fees).

This year’s Distinguished Coverage Award will honor stories about education, either coverage of a specific issue or ongoing education coverage. Each outlet should submit its best story, series or show/program along with an essay of no more than 500 words explaining why the coverage merits recognition. This award is open to all outlets.

We are also accepting applications for five $1,000 scholarships (in print, photography and multimedia), one $1,000 Agnes Diggs scholarship from the Rancho Santa Fe Foundation and our $1,000 Bradley J. Fikes scholarship (preference is given to applicants who show an interest in science or technology reporting).

Winners of the awards and scholarships will be announced on Thursday, July 21, at our awards reception at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens in Liberty Station.

Submit your entries using the BetterBNC Media Awards Platform. To register or enter the contest, open a new browser window or tab to http://www.betterbnc.com. Keep this window open to refer to as you submit your awards.

If you have entered other contests on this platform before, either for last year’s SD-SPJ competition or for the SD Press Club awards, you are already in the system.

Below are directions for preparing and submitting entries. If you have questions, please contact Terry Williams at 619-743-3669 or spj.sandiego@cox.net.

All entries must be submitted online (except for entries in the College Media Best Newspaper category, which must be mailed and postmarked by the contest deadline to: SPJ P.O. Box 880482, San Diego, CA 92168-0482). All entries must be entered by or on behalf of the individuals who produced the work and must identify those individuals.

Best of luck to all of our applicants!

How to Enter

Contest Guidelines and Categories 2022

Scholarship Details

FAQs 2022

Congratulations to our annual Wall, Window, Sunshine and Skylight awards winners!

Every year, the San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists honors public officials, individuals and agencies who did the best (and the worst) job of ensuring that government is accessible and transparent. We’re proud to announce this year’s award winners and will celebrate them with a reception on the back patio of Starlite restaurant from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, March 23. An RSVP is required. Please note that Starlite is a 21+.

Window Award: Music Watson, Chief of Staff, San Diego County Office of Education

SD-SPJ’s annual Window Award goes to a person or public agency that has prioritized transparency and access to information. This year’s winner is Music Watson. Watson has been with the San Diego County Office of Education since 2012 and has earned a reputation among local education reporters for being helpful and transparent — someone who will go out of her way to help journalists get the information they need. “Music is the best,” said NBC7’s Rory Devine. “She knows our deadlines and works diligently to help us meet them.”  Voice of San Diego education reporter Will Huntsberry describes Watson as someone who never just gives a reporter a canned statement. “Music is happy to help put any reporter in touch with anyone who works for the San Diego County Office of Education,” he said. “And if there is a document or piece of information she has access to, she will not hesitate to provide it. If government agencies were full of people like her, the benefit to public knowledge would be incredible and exponential.”

Wall Award: San Diego County Sheriff’s Department

Our Wall Award goes to the person or public agency that made it difficult for journalists to do their jobs by ignoring information requests or otherwise compromising the public’s right to know. 

Unfortunately, this is the second time in two years we’ve given this award to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. In 2020, we criticized the department for putting up roadblocks to requests for basic information on arrests, investigations and deaths in custody. To the department’s credit, it now issues a press release within 24 hours of a death and we appreciate the responsiveness of public information officer Lt. Amber Baggs. But problems remain. The department has also been extraordinarily slow at releasing the records it is required to disclose pursuant to SB 1421, California’s landmark police transparency law. The law went into effect in January 2019; more than three years later, at the end of 2021, the department was still far from releasing all of the mandated records. It also offered a ham-fisted response to criticism about a video that purported to show a deputy collapsing after coming into contact with fentanyl. Scores of addiction experts were quick to point out that the video was inaccurate — you can’t overdose from touching fentanyl — and that misinformation about the drug could lead to treatment delays. As of this posting, the department still has the video on its website with no disclaimer. 

Sunshine Award: Dave Maass, Electronic Frontier Foundation

SD-SPJ’s Sunshine Award goes to a journalist or community member who went above and beyond to make the government more transparent and hold elected officials accountable. This year’s winner is Dave Maass, a former San Diego reporter who moved to Northern California in 2013 to work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit working to defend privacy rights and free speech. Reporters and members of the public who have delved into government surveillance issues praise Maass for his passion and depth of knowledge. Journalist Katy Stegall credited Maass for leading the team that created the Atlas of Surveillance, an interactive map that shows all surveillance technologies being used along the U.S-Mexico border. “He’s also one of the few experts in the country who is able to explain this highly complex topic to both academics, reporters, activists and any layperson who wants to learn more about the surveillance,” Stegall said. “His deep knowledge and understanding of the topic is even further amplified by his passion, willingness and flexibility to meet others where they are and help them fully understand how surveillance impacts communities.”

Skylight Award: Greg Block

SD-SPJ’s Skylight Award is reserved for San Diegans who have devoted their careers to championing the public’s right to know. This year’s award goes to Greg Block, a longtime public affairs pro whose past gigs included the San Diego mayor’s office and San Diego State University. He died in early November after a years-long battle with cancer. Block always went out of his way to help journalists and mentor young reporters. Even when Block was going through harsh chemotherapy treatments, he continued to help facilitate interviews and was never too tired to share his thoughts on a story or a tweet — good and bad — via text message. Block was tireless in his efforts to make sure journalists had the right information and proper context. He also cared deeply about San Diego public affairs and regularly had spirited conversations with beat reporters about the stories of the day. Before he died, Block worked with SDSU to set up a scholarship for young journalists. In his honor, San Diego SPJ will be donating $100 to this scholarship and we encourage our members to make a donation as well.

SPJ-SD Provides Input to county’s Transparency Advisory Committee

Last fall, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors announced it was forming a transparency committee to look into ways to make government more accessible and open to the media and members of the public.  Supervisors Nora Vargas and Joel Anderson are leading the committee. SPJ-SD has met with representatives from their offices to discuss issues about county communications officers’ responsiveness to reporters and the county’s current processes for handling public records requests. 

Here is our latest correspondence with the committee; the letter was also sent to Supervisors Nathan Fletcher, Jim Desmond and Terra Lawson-Remer. If you have any questions about the letter or concerns you’d like us to share with the committee, send an email to: spjsandiego@gmail.com.

SD-SPJ Troubled By Murders of Mexican Journalists

The San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is saddened and deeply troubled by the murders of two Tijuana journalists last week. Their deaths follow the death of a third journalist from Veracruz who was killed during a robbery earlier this month.

According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, on Sunday evening, Lourdes Maldonado López was shot and killed in her car, which was parked outside her home in the Santa Fe area of Tijuana. Her death follows last Monday’s shooting of Margarito Martínez Esquivel, a photojournalist and “fixer” — someone who assists reporters who might not be familiar with an area — who worked with news outlets including the BBC and The Union-Tribune. Martinez Esquivel was shot three times as he was leaving for work.

The Union-Tribune reported that his teenage daughter heard the shots and found her father’s body.

The San Diego journalism community has always had a close bond with Tijuana journalists, who often assist us with coverage and share expertise at conferences and panel discussions. It’s deeply unfair that reporters who live only a few miles south of the U.S. border can’t do their vitally important work without putting their lives at risk.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 56 Mexican reporters have been murdered since 1992, and another 14 have gone missing during that time. For comparison, eight U.S. journalists were murdered in the same time period. 

We join with the San Diego/Tijuana Chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in mourning the loss of these reporters and encourage anyone who wants to help to consider donating to support Martinez Esquivel’s family. We will try to share opportunities to aid journalists and their families as we learn of them.

Panel Discussion: Careers in Science Writing (Virtual)

When: Tuesday, January 25th, from 12pm – 1pm PST
Where: Zoom Register HERE

Thinking about a career in science writing? Hear from professionals in journalism and communications about various career paths during a virtual panel. The event, hosted by San Diego State University, San Diego Science Writers Association and San Diego Society of Professional Journalists, will include four panelists:

·         Heather Buschman (director of scientific communications and media relations at the Salk Institute)

·         Katy Stegall (SDSU student, inaugural Bradley J. Fikes Scholarship recipient and investigative assistant at KPBS)

·         Jared Whitlock (freelance journalist, MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow)

·         Jonathan Wosen (biotech reporter at the San Diego Union-Tribune)

Moderated by Temple Northup, director and professor at school of journalism and media studies at San Diego State University.

Watch the video from our recent reporting on health care panel

Thanks to everyone who attended our Dec. 7 panel, “Reporting on Health Care During Covid-19 and Beyond,” and to our smart, insightful panelists, Paul Sisson, Lauren Mapp and Jill Castellano, who shared their experiences covering everything from nursing home neglect to end-of-life care to preventable deaths. We recorded the Zoom session so those who couldn’t attend could learn some tips from our panelists.

Panel Discussion: Reporting on Healthcare During Covid-19 and Beyond

Even during normal times, the healthcare beat is one of journalism’s most challenging assignments. There’s medical lingo to learn, strict privacy laws to contend with and the high-stakes task of separating truth from misinformation. Join SPJ San Diego for a panel discussion that will delve into current challenges faced by reporters covering healthcare and offer tips for navigating those challenges.

When: Tuesday, Dec. 7 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Who: Union-Tribune healthcare reporter (and our Journalist of the Year) Paul Sisson;

Jill Castellano from inewsource, whose series on COVID-19 deaths won SPJ’s 2021 Distinguished Coverage award; and Lauren Mapp, who’s been doing innovative work on the Union-Tribune’s new caregiver beat. Moderated by freelancer and SPJ San Diego president, Kelly Davis.

WhereZoom! (While we’re looking forward to in-person events in 2022, for now we’re erring on the side of safety and accessibility.)  

SD-SPJ urges autopsy report transparency 

Under California public records laws, an autopsy report is often the only document available to journalists that could shed light on the circumstances surrounding a person’s death. Over the last few years, the San Diego Sheriff’s Department has made it a practice to ask the county medical examiner to seal autopsy reports of people who have died in county jails. 

Last month, the Citizen’s Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB), which investigates deaths in county law enforcement custody, asked the sheriff’s department to stop requesting that autopsy reports be sealed unless it’s absolutely necessary to protect the integrity of an investigation. As CLERB Executive Officer Paul Parker wrote in his policy recommendation, “The ‘sealing’ of a case results in the Medical Examiner’s Office not providing information to the next-of-kin and simply referring them to the [San Diego Sheriff’s Department], which limits the information it provides due to its on-going investigation. These unfortunate circumstances result in next-of-kin receiving no answers for several months, at minimum, and sometimes for a year or longer. In addition, information pertaining to in-custody deaths provided to the public is limited when a case is ‘sealed.’” 

On Oct. 29, the SD-SPJ board sent a letter to Sheriff Bill Gore to express our support for CLERB’s policy recommendation and urge him to adopt it for all the reasons mentioned above. Sheriff’s spokeswoman Lt. Amber Baggs responded that in April 2021, Undersheriff Kelly Martinez verbally directed the department’s homicide unit to stop requesting that autopsy reports for in-custody deaths be sealed reports.

Baggs said the policy was in the process being finalized, and did not apply to deaths prior to Martinez’s order. The SD-SPJ board urges the sheriff’s department to make Martinez’s direction official policy as soon as possible and also ensure that autopsy reports for deaths that occurred prior to April 2021 have been unsealed. We also urge the department to be as transparent as possible when it comes to deaths that involve law enforcement personnel and seal reports only when absolutely necessary.

San Diego SPJ Releases Newsroom Diversity Survey Results

How diverse are San Diego newsrooms?

We finally have an answer to that.

The San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is proud to share the results of our first-ever newsroom diversity survey.

See the results HERE.

Earlier this year – between February and May – we sent surveys to all local newsrooms in San Diego County seeking the breakdown of their newsroom staff members.

Eleven out of the 20 newsrooms responded. The results represent 288 journalists working throughout San Diego County’s media landscape. While all newsrooms were invited to participate, only one television station responded to the survey.

What did the survey show?

San Diego newsrooms are mostly white and male.

There is a large disparity between the number of Latino or Hispanic journalists employed by San Diego newsrooms — 21.9% — compared to 2019 Census estimates showing Latinos and Hispanics represent just over 34% of San Diego’s population.

Less than half of newsroom respondents employ Black journalists and only two San Diego newsrooms employ Native American journalists. Only one newsroom employs a Pacific Islander staff member.

There is much work to be done to ensure San Diego’s newsrooms reflect the diversity of the community.

Many of the newsroom respondents agreed — and shared ways they are actively working to improve the diversity of their companies.

Some have since hired additional staff who reflect their efforts to diversify their newsrooms – we encourage news organizations to share their ongoing diversity and equity efforts with us and participate in future surveys conducted by SD-SPJ.

We hope this survey is a baseline from which leaders in San Diego’s journalism community can work to improve the diversity of their newsrooms to ensure fair and accurate reporting of the communities we cover.

We appreciate the responses we received and hope we are able to get more participation in the future.

Full List of 2021 San Diego SPJ Award Winners

Last night, it was fantastic to celebrate local journalists in person! At our awards reception, held as a casual mixer at Stone Brewing – Liberty Station, attendees had plenty of time to catch up.

If you didn’t make it, here is the final list of who won what. And click here to learn more about Paul Sisson, our 2021 journalist of the year. 

If you were not able to attend and would like to grab your 1st place plaque or 2nd or 3rd place certificates, please email us at spjsandiego@gmail.com. Congratulations to all the winners!

Announcing This Year’s SD-SPJ Award Winners!

Maybe we’re biased, but San Diego has some of the best journalists in the country and we love nothing more than to honor them for their hard work. Click here to view a list of the talented winners of our annual journalism awards — but you’ll have to wait until our awards reception on Sept. 23 to find out who won what!

Please join us at Stone Brewing in Liberty Station for a fun, relaxed gathering. We’ve rented one of Stone’s large outdoor event spaces (Building 12). Tickets are $15 for SPJ members and $20 for nonmembers and include a tasty food spread and dessert. Drink tokens, available on our ticket website, are $5 for craft sodas and $10 for a beer, wine or hard seltzer. 

The evening includes a short program when we’ll announce the winners of our special awards and our Journalist of the Year, Union-Tribune health care reporter Paul Sisson, will give a speech. We’re also putting together a pretty cool silent auction — stay tuned for details.

Congratulations to all our winners! It’s been a difficult year and you deserve to celebrate! 

As in past years, first-place winners will receive a plaque and second and third place winners will receive a certificate. You can pick up your awards at the event.  

When: Thursday, Sept. 23, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Where: Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens @ Liberty Station, 2816 Historic Decatur Road, Unit 116, Building 12

Cost: Presale tickets are $15 per person for SPJ members (join or renew your membership), $20 per person for nonmembers. You can also purchase tickets at the event — $20 for members and $25 for nonmembers. Drink tokens ($5 or $10) are available on the ticket website and at the event. 

IMPORTANT: While this event is outdoors, we ask that anyone who’s been exposed to COVID-19 or thinks they may have been exposed to stay home. This is for the safety of our guests and Stone’s staff. Regarding masks and proof of vaccination, we will follow the county guidelines in place on the day of the event. We certainly encourage anyone who feels more comfortable wearing a mask to do so.

Email us with any questions and we look forward to seeing you!

Paul Sisson, SPJ San Diego’s 2021 Journalist of the Year

The San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is proud to announce our 2021 Journalist of the Year, San Diego Union-Tribune health care reporter Paul Sisson. 

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Paul has distinguished himself as the region’s leading COVID-19 reporter, keeping San Diegans informed during an unprecedented, ever-evolving crisis.

Since Jan. 28, when he wrote his first story on the virus, Paul has produced more than 300 articles, from profiles of frontline health care workers to daily case-count and policy updates, sometimes risking his own health to make sure readers had accurate information. He told stories from emergency rooms and ambulances, culled through staggering amounts of data and pressed public officials for critical information.

Paul was often out in front — by months — on many important stories

“He was the first reporter given an intimate look inside a COVID ward,” says his editor, Tarcy Connors, “doing so at great risk to himself, as little was known about the virus in the early months.”

In addition to his own reporting, Paul found time to mentor and assist colleagues. He also continued to cover important stories on his beat, like the Scripps Health data breach.

Our chapter gives this award not for one particular story, but for a body of work that made a difference over the past year. Paul’s reporting on the virus, treatment and vaccines kept San Diegans safe and informed and likely saved lives.

We invite you to celebrate Paul and our other award winners at Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens in Liberty Station on Thursday, Sept. 23, from 6:30 to 9:30. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets. (And stay tuned for a full list of winners!)

SD-SPJ congratulates our scholarship winners

Each year, the San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists awards up to five scholarships to local college students and recent graduates in the categories of print, photo and multimedia journalism. We also give out a scholarship to honor the memory of North County Times award-winning journalist Agnes Diggs and, this year, introduced the Bradley J. Fikes Scholarship to memorialize San Diego Union-Tribune science journalist Brad Fikes, who died in December 2019. All recipients receive $1,000 to cover the cost of their studies.

Congratulations to this year’s winners! They turned in some impressive work that underscored, once again, the breadth of talent among San Diego’s young journalists.

Print Journalism Scholarships

Jack Trent Dorfman, UC San Diego (check out Jack’s work)

Kaitlin Clapinski, San Diego Mesa College (check out Kaitlin’s work)

Julia Woock, Southwestern College (check out Julia’s work)

Andrew Ha, UC San Diego (check out Andrew’s work)

Multimedia Journalism Scholarship

Amber Salas, San Diego State University (check out Amber’s work)

Agnes Diggs Scholarship

Elaine Alfaro, Point Loma Nazarene University (check out Elaine’s work)

Bradley J. Fikes Scholarship

Katy Stegall, San Diego State University (check out Katy’s work)

We’ll be honoring our scholarship recipients and other special awards winners on Thursday, Sept. 23, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Stone Brewing in Liberty Station. Stay tuned for more details.

Welcome to our new board members!

Recently, SPJ San Diego had to say goodbye to two longtime board members, Tom Jones and Andrew Kleske. But we’re fortunate to have two talented journalists filling their seats. Please join us in welcoming Lynn Walsh and Kristy Totten to the board. You can read a bit more about them below.

Also, please SAVE THE DATE for our 2021 awards event. This year, we’re opting for something casual and outdoors, with lots of space to say hello to friends and colleagues you’ve missed over the last year and a half. The event will be held at Stone Brewing in Liberty Station the evening of Sept. 23. Mark your calendar and stay tuned for more information.

Lynn Walsh

Lynn Walsh is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who has worked in investigative, data and TV journalism for more than 10 years. Currently, she is a freelance journalist and the assistant director for the Trusting News project, where she works to help rebuild trust between journalists and the public by working with newsrooms to be more transparent about how they do their jobs. 

Lynn is also an adjunct professor at Point Loma Nazarene University where she teaches journalism and communication classes. She is a past national president and former ethics chair for the Society of Professional Journalists. Previously, Lynn led the NBC7 Investigates and NBC7 Responds teams in San Diego. Prior to working in California, she was a data producer and investigative reporter for the E.W. Scripps National Desk and worked as the investigative producer at WPTV NewsChannel 5 in West Palm Beach, FL. 

Lynn has won state and local awards as well as multiple Emmys for her stories. She loves holding the powerful accountable and spends more time than she would like fighting for access to public information. Lynn is a proud Bobcat alumna having graduated from the Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.

Kristy Totten

Kristy Totten is a member of The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board and hosts two U-T podcasts, the San Diego News Fix and Name Drop San Diego

Before moving to San Diego in 2019, Kristy covered technology, education, government and the arts for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada Public Radio and Las Vegas Weekly. As a freelancer, she has written about food and culture for NPR, Rolling Stone, Artsy, Thrillist and Vice. 

Kristy is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia. She has a regional Emmy for documentary writing at VegasPBS and shares an AP Radio award for coverage of the Route 91 shooting in Las Vegas. 

As a board member, Kristy looks forward to building community with San Diego journalists, improving representation in local news coverage and encouraging young journalists to get more involved in SPJ and the local journalism community. 

It’s San Diego SPJ Election Time

Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.com

The San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is kicking off its annual board election.

Incumbent board members Bianca Bruno, Matthew Halgren, Lisa Halverstadt, Elizabeth Marie Himchak, Lauren J. Mapp and Arthur Santana are up for re-election this year. You can read about the candidates here.

SPJ members will receive a link to vote via email and should vote by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, June 25. Members may only vote once.

Election results will be announced by early July. If you think you did not receive a ballot and are a current San Diego pro chapter member, please email the board at spjsandiego (at) gmail.com.

Join the San Diego SPJ Board!

We’re currently seeking candidates interested in running for a seat on our chapter’s board. Board members are involved in planning and executing events, putting on our annual awards banquet, crafting and releasing statements and generally advocating for journalists everywhere. We meet on the first Tuesday of every month in the evening. If you’re an SPJ member, you’re eligible to run.

If you’d like to run for the board, please submit your candidacy statement, including any biographical information you would like to share (200-word limit) by 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 3 to spjsandiego@gmail.com.

Election results will be announced by early July. Need to renew your membership? Click here.

Announcing our 2021 Window, Wall and Sunshine Awards

Every year, the San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists honors public officials, individuals and agencies who did the best (and the worst) job of ensuring that government is accessible and transparent. 

The Window Award goes to the person or public agency that prioritized transparency and made information accessible. Our Wall Award goes to the person or public agency that made it difficult for journalists to do their jobs by ignoring information requests or otherwise compromising the public’s right to know. And our Sunshine Award goes to a journalist or community member who went above and beyond to make the government more transparent and hold elected officials accountable.

Since we had to cancel last year’s event because of COVID-19, we’ll be honoring both the 2020 and 2021 awardees in a video you can watch here.

Window Award: Dave Rolland, City of San Diego

We’re pleased to give our 2021 Window Award to Dave Rolland, senior communications adviser to San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria. Rolland had a long career as a journalist before transitioning to government communications roles, first in the state Legislature, then the city of San Diego. While serving as the council communications director for City Council President Georgette Gómez, Rolland started The People’s Business, a blog explaining in plain language items of public interest on the council’s meeting agendas. These agendas can be complicated for the average person to understand, but Rolland made them accessible and provided important context for key issues.

Journalists also find Rolland easy to reach and quick to respond, even when he’s not the right person to answer our questions. His initiative is a great example of a public servant going the extra mile to show a true commitment to open government.

Wall Award: San Diego County

We recognize it’s been a difficult year for the county as it grappled with an unprecedented health crisis, and we commend county staff and elected officials for holding frequent press conferences to update the public on the pandemic. But certain actions have shown that the county still has work to do when it comes to transparency. County officials stopped responding to public records requests, telling journalists that things were “on hold” due to the public health emergency. Yet other counties and government agencies that faced similar challenges amid the pandemic still managed to honor the California Public Records Act.

Equally troubling were efforts by county officials to kill a KPBS story examining leaked data — data that the county had refused to turn over — on COVID-19 outbreak locations. County officials called the story “not responsible journalism.” As you’ll see below, we disagree.

Three years ago, San Diego County received our Wall Award for its lack of transparency surrounding the Hepatitis A crisis. Recently the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to establish a new transparency advisory committee. This is encouraging, and we hope it leads to real change. While we wait, we hope this year’s Wall Award will push the county in the right direction.

Sunshine Award: Claire Trageser, Katy Stegall, Amita Sharma and David Washburn of KPBS

Last December KPBS published a three-part series examining previously undisclosed data on COVID-19 outbreak locations. Claire Trageser was the project’s lead reporter with additional reporting by Katy Stegall and Amita Sharma. David Washburn was the series editor.

Multiple media organizations sued the county to try to get this data. The county argued that making the information public would hamper contact tracing efforts and discourage businesses from reporting COVID-19 outbreaks. The media organizations argued — and SD-SPJ agrees — that the public interest outweighs those concerns.

The KPBS reporting team showed courage in standing up to the county’s efforts to withhold this information from the public, and we are pleased to present them with this year’s Sunshine Award.

SD-SPJ Accepting 2021 Contest Entries

CALLING ALL WINNERS!

SAN DIEGO SPJ IS NOW ACCEPTING ENTRIES FOR OUR 2021 CONTEST.

The 2021 SPJ San Diego Area Journalism Competition will recognize outstanding work by San Diego-area student and professional journalists published or broadcast during the calendar year 2020. Contest entries will be accepted Thursday April 1 through Monday, May 3. Those submitted by 9 p.m. PST on Monday, April 26, 2021, will get $5 off their entry fees in every category but our top and special awards. Student rates do not change.

This year’s Distinguished Coverage Award will honor stories about the COVID-19 pandemic or calls for racial equality in 2020 (participants must choose one topic or the other, not both.) Did your outlet cover it best? Each outlet should submit its best story, series, or show, along with a 500-word essay on why the coverage merits recognition. This award is open to all outlets and the fee to enter is $50.

We are also accepting applications for five $1,000 San Diego SPJ scholarships and one $1,000 Agnes Diggs scholarship from the Rancho Santa Fe Foundation. We look forward to handing these scholarships out to eligible local journalism students.

This year, San Diego SPJ is proud to announce a new $1,000 scholarship award. 

The Bradley J. Fikes Scholarship honors the late reporter’s exemplary career, who wrote for the Daily Transcript, North County Times, and San Diego Union-Tribune. In recognition of Bradley’s contributions to science and technology journalism, preference will be given to applicants interested in these areas of reporting and can explain so on their application.

Winners of the awards and scholarships will be announced this summer during either a virtual or in-person event, depending on the pandemic restrictions.

Submit your entries using the BetterBNC Media Awards Platform. To register or enter the contest online now, open a new browser window or tab to http://www.betterbnc.com. Keep this window open to refer to as you submit your awards.

If you have entered other contests on this platform before, either for last year’s SD-SPJ competition or for the SD Press Club awards, you are already in the system, and you just have to ask to enter the 2021 SPJ awards contest.

Below are directions for preparing and submitting entries. If you have questions, please contact Terry Williams at 619-743-3669 or spj.sandiego@cox.net.

All contest entries must be submitted online (except for entries in the College Media Best Newspaper category, which must be mailed and postmarked by the contest deadline to SPJ to P.O. Box 880482, San Diego, CA 92168-0482). All entries must be entered by or on behalf of the individuals who produced the work and must identify those individuals.

Best of luck to all of our applicants!

How to Enter

Contest Guidelines and Categories 2021

Scholarship Details

FAQs 2021

ICYMI: Watch Our First Media Literacy Event

On March 15, the San Diego Library held the first in a series of four panel discussions focused on media literacy. The event was organized by the SPJ San Diego, the San Diego Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists San Diego-Tijuana Chapter and the Online News Association San Diego Chapter. The panel featured Chris Megerian (Los Angeles Times), Kate Morrissey (San Diego Union-Tribune), Jean Guerrero (author of Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda), Ishmael Estrada (NBC7 San Diego) and Alex Presha (ABC News) who joined moderator Matt Hall (San Diego Union-Tribune) to discuss: “Where Do We Go from Here? Life After the Trump White House.”

Topics ranged from vetting sources to the importance of newsroom diversity to how journalists can earn and maintain public trust. It was an impressive kick-off for a fascinating series of discussions. The next panel, “How Watchdog Journalism Shapes Your Life,” is scheduled for May 20, so mark your calendars.

You can watch our first media literacy panel of the year here.

SD-SPJ Surveying Diversity in San Diego Newsrooms

Newsroom staffing diversity plays a significant role in ensuring that a newsroom’s coverage reflects the communities it serves.

That’s why the San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SD-SPJ) is beginning an important project: surveying local newsrooms about staff demographics. 

With the support of other local journalism organizations, such as the San Diego Association of Black Journalists and the San Diego chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, SD-SPJ seeks to compile demographic data from local newsrooms, as well as information on what newsrooms are doing to increase diversity. SD-SPJ has sent requests to all San Diego print, digital, radio and television newsrooms for this information.

We’re conducting this survey to get a snapshot of San Diego’s newsroom demographics, which we hope will provide a benchmark for further research. While nationwide surveys have found that newsrooms are more diverse than in the past, there’s still work to do. For example, a 2019 survey by the Radio Television Digital News Association found that “the percentage of women and people of color in TV newsrooms reached record highs,” but a 2018 Pew Research Center study found that newsroom employees are “less diverse” than U.S. workers overall. 

We understand this is a difficult time for many journalism organizations. Still, we feel this survey is timely and can be a valuable resource for newsrooms as the economy improves and hiring returns to normal. 

Our plan is to publicly release the data, including a list of all participating newsrooms and a list of all newsrooms we’ve contacted. We will, ideally, hold a virtual event to discuss the findings. 

We’ve also asked newsrooms that are unwilling or unable to complete our survey to please let us know why.

You can see the questions we have asked newsrooms to answer by clicking here.

San Diego SPJ Announces 2020 Award Winners

Coronavirus kept us from holding an annual celebration of local journalism this year so we had to get creative.

We celebrated our major 2020 award winners and scholarship recipients in this video.

You can check out a full list of those winners – including scholarship recipients – here and learn more about 2020 Journalist of the Year Claire Trageser here.

And click here to check out a listing of all of our other deserving award winners.

Watch San Diego SPJ’s Video Celebration of Local Journalism

The coronavirus pandemic unfortunately kept San Diego SPJ from hosting our annual celebration of local journalism so we put together this video to celebrate our deserving recipients of special and top awards and scholarships, and 2020 Journalist of the Year Claire Trageser of KPBS. 

To see more winners of this year’s awards, click here. To see comments from the judges, click here.

If you received a first place award or one of our top honors, stay tuned for more details. We will soon share instructions about how you can receive your award.

Claire Trageser, SPJ San Diego 2020 Journalist of the Year


Credit: Janet Bark Photography

The San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is pleased to announce our 2020 Journalist of the Year: KPBS investigative reporter Claire Trageser.

Claire was doing the hard work of reporting on police misconduct and racial disparities in criminal justice long before the current wave of interest in the topic. And she always approaches her stories with tact and humility.

In February 2019, she unveiled a six-part series called DR J’S: How A Gang Shooting Changed Southeast San Diego. This was a deep dive into a seminal moment for San Diego’s Black community: a horrific crime that led to a major increase in police presence, which many in the neighborhood felt created whole new problems that are still evident today.

Throughout 2019, Claire also reported on police records newly made public thanks to SB 1421. She broke the story of former San Diego police Officer Donald Moncrief, who was accused of sexual assault, resigned before receiving any discipline and was never charged with a crime. Her reporting led to a lawsuit that forced the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to turn over five years of records on complaints against deputies.

Claire’s reporting on criminal justice has featured deeply personal stories. In August 2019, she released a two-part feature on the controversial “felony murder rule,” which allows a defendant to be charged with murder even if they didn’t kill anyone. Claire told the story of Shawn Khalifa, who is incarcerated after a conviction under the rule for a robbery he took part in when he was 15. And she has done stories on celebrations and victories, too, like Southeast San Diego reclaiming the intersection of Euclid and Imperial Avenues as the “4 Corners of Life” instead of the “4 Corners of Death.”

To top things off, Claire often finds interesting and newsworthy stories where no one else is looking, like the large number of broken trash bins in San Diego or the Humane Society’s controversial practice of releasing feral cats back onto the streets. In addition to her excellent reporting, Claire has also been a leader in the local journalism community, previously serving as SD-SPJ president and organizing the SPJ Regional Conference in San Diego in 2017. 

Claire earned this award with her dedication to seeking out and telling impactful stories that truly matter. Unfortunately, we cannot celebrate Claire’s work in person this year. But we hope you will join us for a virtual ceremony the evening of Aug. 24. More details will follow!

Announcing This Year’s SD-SPJ Award Winners

We’re excited to announce the winners of this year’s annual journalism contest. We’ve appreciated your patience as we considered how to best celebrate this year’s winners during a pandemic that has brought new challenges and tough decisions for all of us. 

Click here to view a list of award winners—except for our special awards and scholarships, which will be announced Monday, Aug. 24, via video. The video will also feature a short speech by our Journalist of the Year, who we’ll be announcing Aug. 20 — stay tuned! First-place winners can also check out comments on those awards here.

Congratulations to all our winners! Your hard work and dedication to your craft consistently impress us!

Special note about receiving your awards: As in past years, first place winners will receive a plaque. First place winners will be notified when plaques arrive, and will be sent pick-up instructions. Second and third place winners will receive a certificate. We’ll announce dates and locations for picking up your awards later this month. If you received a second or third place award, and DO NOT want a certificate, please email spjsandiego@gmail.org by Wednesday, Aug. 26, to let us know.

Annual Bench-Bar Event: Meeting This Moment

UPDATE: This event has been rescheduled to September 15.

The year 2020 first brought stay-at-home orders and unprecedented closures of the court system due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then sustained protests over police treatment of African-Americans. During this extraordinary year, the Bench has grappled with how to maintain access to the courts. The Bar has confronted COVID-related challenges to the practice of law and its role in ensuring equal access to justice. Finally, media outlets have worked overtime to cover it all while managing unusual new obstacles to newsgathering. Panelists will discuss local efforts to confront these issues from their respective roles as legal community activists, journalists and law enforcement officials.

When: 5:30 – 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 15

Who: Hon. Dwayne Moring, Moderator, San Diego Superior Court, South County Supervising Judge

Hon. Lorna Alksne, Presiding Judge, San Diego Superior Court

Dana Littlefield, Public Safety Editor, The San Diego Union-Tribune

Adam Racusin, Investigative Reporter, 10News

Summer Stephan, San Diego County District Attorney

Andrea St. Julian, President, Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association; Co-Chair, San Diegans for Justice

Where: Zoom link provided with registration

Register here.

San Diego SPJ Unveils Journalist Relief Fund

Journalists have kept the world informed during the Covid-19 pandemic but have also suffered economic and job losses. San Diego is no exception, with layoffs and furloughs at print, radio, television, and digital news organizations across the county. 

We want to help.

The San Diego Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is creating a Journalist Relief Fund. We’ve allocated $1,500 for $250 grants to media colleagues who’ve lost work. We know it’s not going to cover rent, but we hope the grants will provide some relief. 

Those wishing to apply for a grant don’t need to be members of SD-SPJ, but they must work (or have worked) in San Diego County. The application deadline is midnight Sunday, Aug. 2. You can check out the application here.

We are also accepting donations from those wishing to contribute to the SD-SPJ Journalist Relief Fund via our PayPal account. Please note: Donations are not tax-exempt, but they will go a long way. To donate, click here.

For questions related to the Journalism Relief Fund, email spjsandiego@gmail.com.