We don’t usually brag like this, but over the last weekend the Southern California Journalism Awards took place, and Annenberg Media did very well.
It’s a Saturday night in a ballroom of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA. Tables full of LA’s best journalists are dressed in semi-formal attire.
This is the 63rd Annual SoCal Journalism Awards, hosted by the LA Press Club. LA Times won big. KCET too. And also winning big, USC’s own Annenberg Media.
By the end of the evening, Annenberg student journalists walked away with eight awards, and were runner-ups for 11 more. They won in student media categories and in categories where professional journalists compete. Multiple back-to-back wins made sure that Annenberg’s presence was known in LA’s journalism community.
In the audience was Professor Gordon Stables, director of the School of Journalism at Annenberg. He says he could barely keep up with live tweeting the school’s streak of wins as they were announced:
USC Annenberg tends to do really well in the Press Club Awards in a range of different categories. It changes a little bit year to year, but this was a really strong showing even by our standards, where you know, the overall majority of student awards Annenberg Media won or USC Annenberg won. And there were so many opportunities where we either won or we placed in the professional category. So it was really a banner night overall.
Most of the work recognized was produced from home during the pandemic, after the Annenberg Media Center had to shut down and radically change their production process.
So the fact that so many of the pieces were recognized, I think, is even more remarkable given the circumstances of how they were produced.
One of these award-winning pieces was by student journalist Eileen Chen. She wrote about how international students from China dealt with remote classwork during the pandemic.
Prior to this story, I was always hesitant in terms of reporting my own community because I don’t know how close is too close when I report my own community. I have to deal with my own fault lines and biases, but I also want to make sure I represent my community appropriately. I want these stories to be visible and celebrated.
On Saturday night, she was not at all expecting to win.
It was pretty surreal. And I mean, people captured my reaction video. And I don’t even dare to look at it because I was genuinely so happy, but honestly more surprised than anything because it was my first ever feature.
A night like this helps young journalists, like Eileen, get recognized for their work and have it seen and heard by professionals. Professor Gordon Stables is excited about the opportunities winning awards creates for Annenberg students.
It’s a nice way to tell the professional community: Here’s the next generation of really remarkable professionals. You should be looking to hire them. You should be looking to work with them. So, you know, I think it’s important to recognize the awards don’t make the work more meaningful, but the awards are a nice way to give the students the spotlight and the recognition that they deserve.
Big shout out to the LA Press Club, and if you want to watch, read or listen to the award-winning work of Annenberg journalists, check out uscannenbergmedia.com for more.