Press Group Names Times’ Shelby Coffey Editor of the Year

Los Angeles Times Editor Shelby Coffey III has been named the National Press Foundation’s editor of the year, in recognition of the paper’s coverage of the 1992 riots, the Jan. 17 earthquake and the O.J. Simpson trial.

Coffey was one of three journalists honored this week by the Washington-based foundation, which operates a nonprofit, nationwide program offering continuing education to print and broadcast journalists. Also cited were CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, for excellence in broadcast reporting, and Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff, for lifetime achievement.

Coffey, 48, has been editor of The Times since Jan. 1, 1989, and has overseen a number of changes at the newspaper. Among other things, The Times has streamlined design and content during Coffey’s tenure, added a World Report section and beefed up its investigative reports.

Those changes were noted by the foundation in its selection of Coffey for the award, along with his management of the paper’s coverage in recent years of a number of Southern California’s most tumultuous breaking news events, including the riots, for which the paper won a Pulitzer Prize.

“This is truly an honor for the Los Angeles Times editorial staff--and for all the people who put out the paper,” Coffey said.

Shaw, 54, was singled out for his “constant adherence to the highest standards of journalism” during his career, which spans most of the major events of the past 25 years. Among other things, Shaw covered Watergate, the upheavals in Central America and the crackdown by the Chinese government in Tian An Men Square, and he broadcast live during the outbreak of the Gulf War as allied jets bombed Baghdad.

Hentoff, 69, the author of “Free Speech--For Me but Not for Thee,” was honored for his lifelong advocacy of the 1st Amendment and for his syndicated column, which is carried by more than 200 newspapers nationwide.