SPJ ANNOUNCES EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM AWARD WINNERS
CHAUNCEY BAILEY NAMED JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR

San Francisco, September 21, 2007 – Chauncey Bailey, slain editor of the Oakland Post, has been named Journalist of the Year by the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for his fierce commitment to investigative journalism in the face of personal danger.

At a time when journalists around the world are under threat for simply doing their jobs, Bailey was a forceful presence in print and on radio and television in the Bay Area for the past 15 years. A tireless advocate for the African-American community, he was assassinated while pursuing a story, and evidence presented thus far shows that he was assassinated because he was pursuing that story. His death is a loss to the Bay Area community he served, to the young journalists he mentored, and to the profession of journalism he so passionately practiced.

Chauncey Bailey and the other winners will be honored at the SPJ Excellence in Journalism Awards dinner on November 8.

This year’s winners explored a wide range of issues; among the subjects most often cited were global climate change, the effects of violence, and the inadequacy of California’s foster care system. The San Francisco Chronicle, KCBS Radio, the National Radio Project, and the San Jose Mercury News won multiple awards.

The coveted Public Service award goes to G.W. Schulz and the San Francisco Bay Guardian for a series of stories, editorials, and blogs examining the consequences of Media News Corp.’s purchase of nearly all Bay Area daily newspapers. Beyond its coverage and commentary, the Guardian successfully sued to unseal court documents in a lawsuit challenging the purchase. SPJ’s panel of judges noted that the Bay Guardian “demonstrated by example the value of diversity in news media ownership.”

Two veteran Bay Area journalists, David Talbot and Randy Shandobil, are winners of the Career Achievement Award.

• After a distinguished career in print journalism as senior editor at Mother Jones magazine and arts and features editor at the San Francisco Examiner, David Talbot turned to the web in 1995 and founded Salon.com. Called “a pioneer of online journalism” by The New York Times, he proved that investigative, ethical journalism can thrive on the Internet. After serving as editor-in-chief and chief executive officer of Salon for a decade, he stepped down in 2005 but continues as board chair. He is the author of the just-released book Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.

• Randy Shandobil, KTVU-TV political editor, has consistently demonstrated that first-rate political reporting goes way beyond horse-race stories at election time. His innovative, issue-focused coverage engages viewers and informs them about their electoral choices. Long recognized by his broadcast peers, he has received eight Emmy awards and two Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in Television Political Journalism. He joined KTVU in 1978 and previously was a general assignment reporter and producer of The Ten O’Clock News.

Malcolm Margolin, author of The Ohlone Way, editor, and publisher, receives the Distinguished Service Award for his contribution to book-length journalism. Numerous California journalists -- contemporary and historical -- have found new audiences through his role as publisher at Heyday Books, which he founded in 1974. Among recent Heyday releases are The Port Chicago Mutiny by Robert Allen, Under the Dragon: California’s New Culture by Lonny Shavelson and Fred Setterberg, and Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora by Andrew Lam. Heyday also has given new life to out-of-print journalism classics by Carey McWilliams, Lincoln Steffens, and Ambrose Bierce.

The Unsung Hero Award goes to Fred Goff of the Data Center who for 30 years has remained committed to making information available to journalists. A public interest research library in Oakland, the center was “database central” for journalists in the pre-Internet days. The Data Center’s clipping files and its skilled and dedicated researchers provided helpful background for journalists covering such subjects as immigration, the environment, Latin America, and community issues in the Bay Area.

Full List of Winners:

Breaking News

• Print (daily): The San Jose Mercury News (Brandon Bailey, Ken McLaughlin, Patrick May, Mary Anne Ostrom and Lisa Krieger) for coverage of e coli contamination in Salinas Valley packaged spinach.
• Broadcast: KCBS News Team for coverage of the mayhem on San Francisco’s Fillmore Street when a man drove his car into a crowd of people.

Explanatory Journalism

• Print (daily): Meredith May of The San Francisco Chronicle for “Diary of a Sex Slave,” a series that unveiled the inner workings of a complex trafficking ring through the story of one young woman.
• Print (non-daily): California Magazine for “Global Warming,” a special report that examines climate change from Berkeley to Africa to China and beyond.
• Broadcast: Tena Rubio, National Radio Project, for “New Orleans Now: Immigrants, Labor Rights and the Cost of Rebuilding an American City,” a series that delves into the problems of rebuilding New Orleans by reporting from the perspective of Latino immigrant laborers.
• Online: SFGate for “Oakland: A Plague of Killing,” a detailed multimedia look at Oakland homicides in 2006 that supplements and amplifies stories from the San Francisco Chronicle and demonstrates how the web can explain issues behind a story.

Investigative Journalism

• Print (daily): Andrew McIntosh, The Sacramento Bee, for a series on troubled emergency responders that revealed theft, substance abuse, and falsified training records among paramedics and emergency medical technicians.
• Print (non-daily): Eliza Strickland, SF Weekly, for “Burnt Chefs,” an examination of questionable practices at an expensive cooking school and how the state has failed to regulate for-profit schools.
• Broadcast: National Radio Project (Tena Rubio and others) for “Waves of Change,” a global survey of increasingly scarce water resources, including an examination of how the sugar industry controlled water in Hawaii.

Feature Writing

• Print (daily): Sara Steffens of the Contra Costa Times for “Displaced,” a series that examines the foster care system and how it fails young people.
• Print (non-daily): Kara Platoni of the East Bay Express for “Dealing in Death,” an examination of gun violence and gun availability.
• Broadcast: Doug Sovern, KCBS Radio, for profiling the homeless at San Francisco’s Lake Alvord and demonstrating how their presence affects the neighborhood economy.
• Online: bayareanewsgroup.com for a multimedia feature package that shows how a moment of violence changed the lives of a 13-year-old Oakland girl, her family, and friends – with links to stories in the Oakland Tribune.

Opinion

• Pati Poblete, John Diaz, and Caille Millner, San Francisco Chronicle, for a series of editorials that showed how the foster care system was failing the very children it was supposed to serve. The series was instrumental in passage of laws to reform California’s foster care system.

Criticism
• John King, San Francisco Chronicle, for articles on urban design that encourage readers to think anew about the built environment in which they live, work, and play.

Photojournalism
• Lacy Atkins, San Francisco Chronicle, whose images of the effects of violence in Oakland succeed on both an emotional and technical level.

Outstanding Emerging Journalist
• Nicole C. Wong, San Jose Mercury News, for business stories that were enterprising, engaging and accessible. Her stories show how industry practices affect real people.

Two distinguished Bay Area journalists, Sandy Close, founder of Pacific News Service and New America Media, and Ben Bagdikian, author and former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC-Berkeley, are serving as honorary chairs of the SPJ Excellence in Journalism Awards Dinner, which will be held on Thursday, November 8, at Yank Sing Restaurant in Rincon Center (Spear and Mission), San Francisco. Cocktails and social hour begin at 6 p.m.; dinner will be served at 7. The awards program will follow with emcees Barbara Rodgers, KPIX news anchor, and Scott Shafer, host of KQED’s “California Report.” To purchase tickets, contact Eva Martinez at emartinez@accionlatina.org.

The judges: Randy Alfred, Cristina Azocar, Gina Baleria, Jim Brice, Lou Dematteis, Liz Enochs, Reese Erlich, Jon Funabiki, Fred Gebhart, Adi Gevins, Ted Glasser, Rasa Gustaitas, Chris Hardy, Al Hart, Dina Ibrahim, Mary Johnson, Diane Keaton, Paul Kleyman, Rick Knee, Sally Lehrman, Dick Meister, Tom Murphy, David Pham, Sarah Pollock, Fred Setterberg, Andre Shashaty, Gail Silva, Venise Wagner, Michael Winter, William Wong.

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Cost: $50 SPJ member, $60 non-member

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See the mailed invitation (PDF) for more details. Please print the response card and mail it with your check to: SPJ/NorCal c/o Eva Martinez Accion Latina 2958 24th St. San Francisco CA 94110