The Bee garners nine newspaper awards

Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008

The Fresno Bee won nine first- or second-place awards Saturday in the California Newspaper Publishers Association's annual Better Newspapers Contest.

The Bee competes in the 75,001- to 200,000-circulation division.

Vida en el Valle won three awards, and The Clovis Independent received four awards. The McClatchy Co. owns The Fresno Bee and Vida en el Valle, and owned The Clovis Independent until closing it this year.

The awards were presented Saturday in Universal City during the CNPA's annual convention.

The Bee's first-place awards:

* Public Service: Reporting by George Hostetter that detailed how California State University, Fresno, misdirected matching gifts to athletic programs.

* General News Photo: John Walker.

* Feature Photo: Craig Kohlruss.

* Special Issue: "Fighting for Air," which was published Dec. 16 and continued The Bee's award-winning coverage of Valley air issues that started with the 2002 special report, "Last Gasp."

* Illustration/Info Graphic: Smogbusters by John Alvin, which was part of "Fighting for Air."

The Bee's second-place awards:

* Writing: "Ruined Lives, Decades Later," a story on Jan. 6, 2008, by Diana Marcum that revisited a 33-year-old murder.

* Local Breaking News: Coverage of a massive fog-shrouded pileup Nov. 3 by Felicia Cousart Matlosz, Louis Galvan and Tim Sheehan.

* Breaking News Photo: Diana Baldrica.

* Editorial Cartoon: Gas Pains by SW Parra.

Vida en el Valle received first place in the division for weekly newspapers with circulations of 25,001 and above for sports coverage and best front page, and second place for page layout and design.

The Clovis Independent won first place in the 4,301- to 11,000-circulation division for weekly newspapers for sports photo, sports coverage and sports story and second place for front page.

Two other McClatchy-owned newspapers in the Valley also received honors. They were the Los Banos Enterprise, which received first place for page layout and design and second place in general excellence, and the Merced Sun-Star, which received first-place awards for writing, local news coverage, feature story and investigative/enterprise reporting. It received second place in writing, investigative/enterprise and page layout and design.

Awards to other Valley newspapers in various circulation categories:

Mariposa Gazette, second place for feature story and breaking-news photo; Sanger Herald, second place for columns; The Kingsburg Recorder, first place for business/financial story and second place for feature story; The Porterville Recorder, first place for local breaking news, business/financial story and sports photo, and second place for general excellence and local news coverage; Visalia Times-Delta, second place for public service and general news photo.