Times a Winner at Greater L.A. Press Club Awards

Los Angeles Times writers, editors and photographers picked up 52 Greater Los Angeles Press Club awards, including an award for General Excellence and the top investigative prize, at the club’s 40th annual awards ceremony Saturday night.

Among the paper’s prizes were 29 first-place awards. The Times also won 23 awards of excellence at the ceremony, held at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Valley Edition writers, photographers and a news editor took home 14 prizes.

Times television critic Howard Rosenberg was awarded the Joseph M. Quinn Memorial Award for career achievement. Jose Rios, vice president for news of KTTV-TV, Channel 11, won the President’s Award for journalistic excellence.

Rosenberg and Kenneth Turan won awards for their television and film reviews.

The Times Valley Edition staff took the general news award for its coverage of last year’s North Hollywood bank shootout.

Writers Steve Berry and Jeff Brazil won the investigative reporting award for their series “Outgunned, the Holes in America’s Assault Weapons Laws.” In the same category, Ralph Frammolino took the award of excellence for “Harvest of Corneas at Morgue Questioned.”

Dan Santos, a news editor with the Valley Edition, won for the layout of the “After the Burn” series. The same work also earned a first-place feature reporting plaque for staff writer James Ricci and another for longtime staff photographer Joel P. Lugavere.

Valley Edition columnist Scott Harris took first place for body of work in the government and elections column category. Former columnist--now Times City Editor--Bill Boyarsky took top honors for an individual column in the same category. Boyarsky and Harris each earned an award of excellence as well.

Valley Edition photographer David Bohrer picked up a first-place plaque for feature photo and tied for first in the photo essay category with Times photographer Clarence Williams, a 1998 Pulitzer prize winner.

Valley Edition photographer Frank Wiese took first place in general news photography. Valley Edition photographers Irfan Khan, Brian Vander Brug and George Wilhelm won awards of excellence in various categories.

The Valley Edition’s Eric Sondheimer took the top prize for body of work by a sports columnist, and Bill Plaschke took an award of excellence in that category.

Columnist Sandy Banks won first place for best column in the personal/observational category and she also won the award for body of work in that category. Valley Edition writer Sharon Bernstein took an award of excellence in the personal/observational column category.

Among the top print media winners was the Santa Clarita-based Signal, which won eight first-place awards and seven awards of excellence.

Among broadcast news organizations, KNX-AM radio garnered the most awards, with seven first-place plaques and nine awards of excellence. Channel 11 won 10 first-place plaques, the most for a television station.

The competition was judged by members of six other press clubs throughout the country.