Times Wins 39 Ventura County Press Club Awards

The Ventura County Edition of the Los Angeles Times has won 39 awards for excellence in the third annual Ventura County Press Club contest--including 22 of 33 first-place prizes for daily newspapers.

Times photographers took first place in all seven photography categories and reporters dominated the press club’s news and feature writing awards for the third straight year.

Among the paper’s top prizes were the press club’s first Community Service Award and first-place honors for best news story, best investigative story, best continuing coverage of a story and best feature story.

Other Times first-place awards were for best sports news story, best sports feature, best education story, best business story, best medical story, best lifestyle story, best military story, best political or government story and best law-and-order story.

The paper also won the top award for best graphic illustration.

The press club’s first Community Service Award was awarded to The Times for a six-part series by staff writers Daryl Kelley, Fred Alvarez, Miguel Bustillo, Mack Reed and Tracy Wilson on raising children in Ventura County, called “KIDS: Family Life in Ventura County.”

Judges called the series “a total blockbuster. This could be a white paper on the cultural implications of working parents, decline in public services and the whole challenge of raising children in this decade.”

In addition to their 22 first-place prizes, Times reporters, editors and photographers won 13 second-place prizes and four honorable mentions for their work. The Ventura County Star won 10 first-place awards in the contest and the Santa Paula Times won one.

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The top prize for best spot news story went to Times reporters Wilson, Bustillo and Kenneth R. Weiss for coverage of storm damage to the Ventura Pier in December 1995. Weiss also won first place for military writing and teamed with Carlos V. Lozano to win top prize for best political or government story for an article on the control that local law enforcement wields over the county budget.

Lozano won first place in investigative reporting for a story on the salaries and financial bonuses of high-ranking county officials. The top prize for best continuing coverage was awarded to Alvarez for stories on the closure of Oxnard’s Nabisco plant. Alvarez also won first place in education reporting.

Other Times first-place winners included Scott Hadly for best feature story, Andrew D. Blechman for best lifestyle story, Wilson for best sports news story, Steve Henson for best sports feature story, Kelley for best medical story, Mary F. Pols for best law-and-order story and Rebecca Perry for best graphic illustration.

In the photo categories swept by The Times, photographer Wendy Lamm won first-place awards for best portfolio, best portrait, best sports photo and best news photo. Alan Hagman won first place for best feature photo and Steve Osman won first place for best photo series or story. Spencer Weiner won for best photo illustration.

This year’s contest attracted more than 700 entries. The print categories were judged by members of the San Diego Press Club, and photos were judged by the photo staff of the San Jose Mercury News.

The awards for daily newspapers will be presented along with awards to non-daily publications Oct. 20 at a dinner at the Wedgewood Banquet Center in Ventura.