Allen wins national investigative reporting prize

Two Las Vegas Sun reporter have won the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting for a series on substandard medical care in Las Vegas. Splitting the $25,000 prize are Alex Richards and Marshall Allen, a former Pasadena Star-News reporter, who has just taken a job with ProPublica.

(Allen is pictured at far right.)

Allen and Richards took top honors over the highly celebrated duo of Ruben Vives and Jeff Gottlieb, who helped break the story of the salary scandal in the city of Bell, as well as an intensive investigation into massive buildup of America's homeland security apparatus after 9/11 done by the Washington Post. A link to the Sun series is here.

The Sun, which was revitalized by an infusion of money from Brian Greenspun and the leadership of editor Drex Heikes, who helped win the paper a Pulitzer before heading to the LA Weekly, has certainly proven that a newsroom with a free hand to do good work will do good work. Let's hope Heikes can repeat the magic at the Weekly - and that the Weekly owners are paying attention.

Comings and goings

J. Patrick Coolican has joined the LA Weekly as a web editor and reporter. Coolican comes from the Las Vegas Sun, where he covered politics. It is no coincidence that Weekly editor Drex Heikes served as deputy managing editor of the Sun during much of Coolican's tenure there.

LA Weekly editor hospitalized

fishbowlLA has the story.

Daily Breeze reporter headed to LA Weekly*

Gene Maddaus, who covered the city of Carson and politics for the Daily Breeze, has accepted a job as a staff writer at the LA Weekly. From the newsroom memo (via LA Observed):

We have hired a reporter to fill our staff writer opening. Gene Maddaus of the Daily Breeze will come aboard Jan. 11.

Gene is an energetic, tough-minded reporter who has laid down a lot of shoe leather working at three newspapers in Southern California. He has an impressive record of enterprise and investigative work, stories he turned out at a time when that kind of reporting is harder to execute at daily newspapers.

At the Daily Breeze, Gene covered politics and Carson City Hall for more than three years. Before that, he covered the city of Pasadena for the Pasadena Star-News. He began his newspaper career at the Inland Valley Times, a now-defunct Times Community newspaper.

Gene is a 2000 graduate of Syracuse University in 2000. He grew up in Maine.

Gene also is a a former colleague of mine and I wish him the best.

*Update: Memo from Daily Breeze City Editor Frank Suraci:

To all,

Congratulations are in order for our colleague Gene Maddaus, who will be leaving the staff in two weeks to join LA Weekly. Gene has done solid work for us covering politics and the city of Carson and we'll miss his firebrand reporting style.

Join me in wishing Gene the best as he moves along to the next chapter of his career.

Frank

P.S. Haven't heard from Jim Dear yet, but I imagine he'll consider this the best Christmas gift a guy could get.

For those not immersed in Carson politics, Jim Dear is the city's mayor.

Comings and goings

God Blog author and former LANGer Brad Greenberg is heading to UCLA Law School. In a Friday post, he says he plans to keep up with the blogging even as he studies the finer points of contract law and civil procedure in the Fall.

LA Observed notes that Las Vegas Sun reporter Alexandra Berzon, fresh off her Pulitzer Prize win, will head west to join the Wall Street Journal's Los Angeles bureau. Last month, Drex Heikes, Berzon's editor on the four-part series that won the award, announced that he would be leaving the Sun to take over as editor-in-chief of the LA Weekly in August.

Return of the Drex

Drex Heikes, a former editor at the Los Angeles Times and now deputy managing editor at the Pulitzer-prize winning Las Vegas Sun, will return to Southern California in August to takeover as top editor of the LA Weekly, LA Observed reported today.

From the Weekly blog:

During an 18-year career at the Los Angeles Times, Heikes served as editor of the Sunday magazine--where he directed both long-form news journalism and the coverage of local arts and culture--and as foreign affairs editor in the paper's Washington bureau. He spent the fall of 2001 in New York City supervising the Times' coverage of the World Trade Center attacks.

In 2005 Heikes was offered the number-two position at the Sun and a rare opportunity to recast the traditional afternoon daily as a magazine devoted to enterprise and analysis. Two years ago he noticed that construction workers were dying at a high rate on the Las Vegas Strip. He assigned a newly hired reporter to look into the deaths and then guided the newspaper's year-long series of stories and editorials that led to the Pulitzer.

Heikes said he is eager to invigorate LA Weekly's online content and also do the kind of print journalism that requires space and time.

"Village Voice Media publishes vital newspapers because it has upheld the vision of its founding editor, Mike Lacey," Heikes said. "Mike is a reporter at heart. His mission has never wavered. First you report, and you report hard. Then you write--and you do it as a storyteller.

"Find me another vehicle for that today.

"I am thrilled, absolutely thrilled, at this chance to lead a Los Angeles newspaper in that mold," he said.

Heikes replaces Laurie Ochoa, who was parted from her job earlier this month.