This has been a tumultuous year for us to say the least. Instead of kicking back and relaxing as we sail into our 10thanniversary of covering Long Beach sports together, we were laid off from our old daily newspaper gig and have been spending the Spring building the562.org as a sustainable non-profit that will allow us to keep covering the city for years to come.
That’s why we were particularly gratified to be recognized as among the state’s best four separate times by the California News Publishers Association at last weekend’s California Journalism Awards for our work in the Grunion Gazette in 2017.
The Grunion competes in the most competitive category for weekly newspapers, the 25,000+ circulation category.
Mike’s story about Long Beach Poly’s improbable girls’ track state championship won first place for best game story in California. His story about the Long Beach State women’s basketball team winning the Big West championship won third place, giving us two of the top three awards in the state for best game story.
JJ and Mike won second place for best column for the recurring “About Sports” column in the Grunion, and were happy to finish second to Grunion executive editor Harry Saltzgaver, whose Pinch of Salt column won the top prize. JJ’s column about he and his fiancée meeting Vin Scully and Mike’s column about Wilson swimming’s emotional spring were the recognized columns.
In addition to those first, second, and third place prizes, our football preview issue was named one of the four finalists for best special sports section.
We bring a lot of traffic in through our video highlights but have always taken great pride in the quality of writing we put out, so it’s nice to be recognized among the state’s best on that front. It also highlights one of the reasons it was so important to us to reach a deal that allows us to continue producing a sports section for the Grunion—the people there are dedicated and talented, and the sports section has now been recognized as one of California’s best several times over. That’s what Long Beach athletes and sports fans deserve.
On a final note, we were especially pleased to see two of our stories about girls’ and women’s sports recognized. We pride ourselves on providing quality coverage of women’s teams and it was nice to see our game stories about championship efforts from the women of Long Beach Poly and Long Beach State honored as two of the state’s three best from 2017.
Thanks to all the hard-working folks at the Grunion that helped earn these awards and to the coaches and athletes who shared their time and their stories with us so we could share them with the world.
Here are some links to the award-winning stories.
Long Beach Poly Wins State Track
Long Beach State Wins Big West Title
JJ’s Column About Meeting Vin Scully
Mike’s Column About Wilson Aquatics
