Los Angeles Times Business section wins honors

The Business section of the Los Angeles Times and several of its writers were honored Thursday by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

The daily section was named as a finalist for the general excellence award for daily newspapers with a circulation of more than 400,000, behind the winner, the business section of the New York Times.

“A worthy honoree,” the judges said of the Los Angeles Times’ Business section. “In particular, the paper’s investigation on Wells Fargo sales quotas featured on the front page exhibited great enterprise in exposing questionable behavior from a bank that had largely avoided scrutiny.”

Los Angeles Times staff writer E. Scott Reckard won in the breaking news category, honored for the Wells Fargo story. Consumer columnist David Lazarus won in the category of newspaper commentary, primarily for his coverage of healthcare issues.

In the category of newspaper features, staff writer Alana Semuels won for a series on overworked and increasingly pressured Americans. The finalists in that category were staff writers Walter Hamilton and Shan Li for their coverage of the lasting effects of the financial crisis on a family, five years after the meltdown.

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