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Our Tri-Valley editorial team earned recognition from our peers statewide over the weekend at the annual California Journalism Awards, including wins in our division for Feature Story and Coverage of Youth and Education.
The two first-place awards were among seven finalists for the Pleasanton Weekly for our outstanding local coverage in 2023 on important topics ranging from special education to water rates to teacher compensation to catalytic converter theft prevention and more.
I had the privilege of being in the ballroom in Universal City on Saturday night to represent the entire Embarcadero Media Foundation, beaming with pride (and banging on the table to cheer) each time our East Bay team or colleagues in our Peninsula Division were honored.
It was the first awards gala for the California News Publishers Association since before the pandemic, and the professional joy and camaraderie throughout were reinvigorating.
Staff reporter Christian Trujano won our opening award of the evening, taking first place in our Division 6 for Coverage of Youth and Education for his Jan. 13, 2023 cover story “An appropriate education“ — which explored Pleasanton Unified School District’s learning disability support system through the difficult experience of the local Cummings family.
“Very thorough and balances policy explanations and the personal experiences of families. The writer does a good job giving context, and the story is structured well with sections that make sense and flow well,” the category judge wrote of Christian’s article.
Editor Cierra Bailey earned our other top honor not long after, winning our Feature Story category for her March 31, 2023 cover story “Driving out catalytic converter theft” highlighting efforts by the Tri-Valley law enforcement to prevent and solve the burdensome crime.
The CNPA judge commended Cierra’s comprehensive work: “Nicely reported story with lots of details and facts. This story surprised me with how interesting — and timely — it was. I learned lots. Bravo!”
In addition to the two first-place awards, we walked away with two certificates for second place, two for third place and one for fifth place.
Christian joined his fellow reporter Jeanita Lyman and former colleague Nicole Gonzales in taking second place in In-Depth Reporting for their team project “Paying public educators” last September.
The success of that story (which compared and contrasted the Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore Valley and San Ramon Valley school districts) shows to me the importance of what we do on a regular basis: provide journalistic context and perspective about key issues beyond just one city or town, but across the Tri-Valley.
Publisher Gina Channell Wilcox was again recognized for her Around the Valley columns. Even though she took a step back from writing last year, her paired series early in 2023, “Illogical decisions by Pleasanton City Council”, stood out to the judges as second place. You may remember those columns well: “Growing list of illogical decisions” and “From illogical to absurd”.
Jeanita and I shared third place for Health Reporting for our series on the introduction and ultimate unraveling of the proposed acquisition of San Ramon Regional Medical Center by John Muir Health, which was undone by antitrust allegations by regulators. Tucked in that strong coverage by Jeanita was my scoop discovering the local hospital had quietly changed CEOs for the second time in less than a year.
We took home another third place in Profile Story for Nicole’s cover story on Xiaopei Dance Studio, “A legacy of culture, community and dance”.
Rounding out our recognitions was a fifth-place award for Christian in Coverage of Local Government for his nearly yearlong series on the city of Pleasanton’s water rates debates – in particular the judge praised the Weekly for “covering increasing water rates from start to finish“.
Including our East Bay Division’s tally, Embarcadero Media Foundation earned 30 awards in all in this year’s CJA competition, including first-place honors for the Palo Alto Weekly (Coverage of Business and the Economy) and Mountain View Voice (Investigative Reporting) and second place in General Excellence for Palo Alto.
Shoutout, too, to The Express at Las Positas College in Livermore. The student-run publication garnered six awards in the campus competition, including first place in News Photo for Justin Gomes’ depiction of student and campus police and fourth place for General Excellence among two-year colleges.
I have so many other takeaways, professionally and personally.
There were two 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners in the room among our CNPA peers (film critic Justin Chang, formerly of the Los Angeles Times, and reps of the Lookout Santa Cruz breaking news team). KTLA 5 Morning News co-anchor Chris Schauble knocked it out of the park as emcee. This was my first overnight business trip … and pretty sure the first time I’ve ever stayed in a hotel room by myself. Oh, and I even saw Danville nonprofit The Crayon Initiative on display at Universal CityWalk.
But those anecdotes will wait. This is the time to spotlight the stellar journalism from our team. Congratulations to each for their awards — and here’s to winning even more next year!
Editor’s note: Jeremy Walsh is the editorial director for the Embarcadero Media Foundation’s East Bay Division. His “What a Week” column is a recurring feature in the Pleasanton Weekly, Livermore Vine and DanvilleSanRamon.com.
