Awards

The Las Vegas Sun's "Do No Harm" series, written by former Pasadena Star-News reporter Marshall Allen and Alex Richards, won the best investigative reporting award from the Scripps Howard Foundation.     The Los Angeles Times won the public service award for its "Grading the Teachers" series, and USC journalism professor Joe Saltzman won teacher of the year.

The Society of American Business Writers and Editors awarded the Orange County Register two top honors: "Immigrants and the California Economy" won for explanatory reporting and "Reversal of Fortunes" won best feature. The Sun "Do No Harm" series won for investigative reporting here as well.

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.

Allen goes to ProPublica*

Former Pasadena Star-News reporter Marshall Allen, whose work at the Las Vegas Sun has made him a finalist for the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, has taken a job with ProPublica. Allen will start at the nonprofit news outfit next week. He'll continue covering health care to start.

*In addition: Former Pasadena Star-News reporter Cindy Chang was promoted to special projects writer at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Previously, she worked on the paper's city desk. In her new position, Chang "will be the lead author and coordinator" of the paper's investigative projects.

Review-Journal dumps investigative unit

There's plenty to investigate in Nevada, but the Las Vegas Review-Journal has decided to dump its investigative unit as layoffs hit the newsroom. According to an AP story in the Las Vegas Sun, five people lost jobs in the R-J newsroom, in addition to five production workers and two administrative staffers.

(found via Romenesko)

Post-LANG success story

Marshall Allen, who worked at the Pasadena Star-News for several years before heading to the Las Vegas Sun, is up for a Goldsmith Prize in Investigative Journalism, which comes with a $25,000 prize. Allen co-wrote a series called "Do No Harm: Hospital Care in Las Vegas". Here's a description of the series:

After a two-year investigation, including the review of 2.9 million records, the Sun’s five-part series identifies the preventable infections and injuries taking place in Las Vegas hospitals. Allen and Richards set out to impose transparency on Las Vegas hospitals so they will be held accountable. Their findings resulted in consumers having access to quality-of-care data that will help them make smart decisions.

Also on the finalists' list is the city of Bell series done by the Los Angeles Times.

Is Cooley's goose cooked?

If you're looking for a good read as you wait for an intimate pat down at the airport, Gene Maddaus at the LA Weekly has crunched the numbers in the still-undecided state Attorney General's race and found that Democrat Kamala Harris has an insurmountable lead over Republican Steve Cooley - barring some unforeseen problem with a large number of ballots.

Here's the relevant passage:

The county websites have more up-to-date figures in some cases than the Secretary of State. Using those numbers, we can say that Harris is leading by 49,535 votes. (2:50 update: 51,141 votes.) Given the geographic breakdown of the remaining uncounted ballots, we expect her to expand her lead by another 10,000 votes or so, ending up with a margin of six tenths of a percent (46.0-45.4).

In order to win the race, Cooley would have to win the remaining uncounted votes by a margin of 66-26. (Update at 2:50: Cooley would now have to win by 72-20.) The likelihood of that happening is extremely close to zero. One of his best counties was Orange County, and his margin there was only 60-31.

The Los Angeles Times today followed with a more circumspect story, the writing on the wall is still pretty clear. Of course, Cooley has the option of calling for a recount and challenging ballots, with unknown results (except that we'll have to wait many more weeks before a winner is declared). Cooley is holding a call with reporters today at 10:30 a.m. and we'll see what he says.

P.S. This Weekly's reporting here, with its 538.com edge, is what the paper is uniquely positioned to deliver when it comes to local politics. Hopefully we'll see more of it, although the political reporter the paper hired in June from the Las Vegas Sun, J. Patrick Coolican, recently left the Weekly to go back to the Sun.

Four in the morning

1. Twenty-eight-year old Pulitzer winner uses his prize money to establish a fund for rural reporters. IRJ

2. Las Vegas Review-Journal defends its practice of suing over alleged copyright violations. LV Sun

3. Thank god someone is finally giving corporations a chance to be heard. Forbes will run corporate/marketing/advertising blogs alongside staff blogs to make sure these afflicted get the comfort they so sorely need. AdAge

4. I guess since so many journalists have already left, Sidney Harman won't have to fire that many people at Newsweek. Poynter

What happens in the Review-Journal stays in the Review-Journal

The editor and publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are boosters for Nevada's Republican Senate Sharon Angle. They're also suing for copyright infringement after she posted R-J articles on her website without the paper's permission. To find about the suit, however, you have to read the paper's competition, the Las Vegas Sun. Steve Friess at Politics Daily has the story.

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.

Layoffs in Las Vegas*

An "unspecified number of layoffs" are part of a reorganization plan for the Las Vegas Sun, according to a staff report. The paper, which won a Pulitzer Prize last year, plans to merge its web and newspaper staffs as a way to save money.

From the Sun:

The changes were prompted ... by the need to better meet the information and marketing needs of the Las Vegas area and to create a sustainable business model in the face of the continued recession.

The story says the Associated Press and New York Times are also making staff cuts.

*Updated 12/2: About 20 staffers were laid off, according to a story on the Sun website.

Entrepreneurial journalism

A prominent television news anchor in Las Vegas was caught on tape trying to play both ends of a newsroom investigation into a local tire chain, the Las Vegas Sun reports.

Nina Radetich, an anchor at station KTNV, introduced several stories about a state consumer affairs probe into customer complaints about Tire Works. Days before the first segment ran, Radetich tried to drum up a little business for Jack Finn, a former spokesman for Sen. John Ensign and Radetich's boyfriend. Radetich suggested Finn could help the owner of Tire Works push back against the negative publicity from the stories.

KTNV's general manager called Radetich's actions a lapse in judgment, but told the Sun that it had no effect on the station's reporting.

Finn said his girlfriend "did a pretty good job of upholding her ethical standards" - I'll assume he's only speaking of her standards, and not the ethical standards of others.

(via Romenesko)

Four today

1. Richard Serrano, late of the Los Angeles Times Washington bureau, has landed at the Las Vegas Sun. LAO

2. A Gannett paper in Utah has refused to print a same-sex wedding announcement. AP

3. Newspaper cuts in Wisconsin. Wisconsin State Journal

4. Josh Marshall gives an early nod to the LA Times redesign. TPM

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.

Sun on the Sun

The Las Vegas Sun recounts the day that it won the Pulitzer Prize. The story is by Marshall Allen, formerly of the Pasadena Star-News.

Pulitzer prizes*, **

The Las Vegas Sun won the coveted Public Service award for a series on construction deaths on the Las Vegas Strip.

(Marshall Allen, my former colleague at the Pasadena Star-News and now a Sun reporter, had this to say when I congratulated him: "We're stunned." I'm also told that, as of 12:30 p.m. Pacific, the lead reporter is out of the office with her cell phone off and so doesn't even know she's won yet. 12:39 p.m.: Alexandra Berzon just arrived at the office to a round of applause.)

Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times won for explanatory reporting for their stories studying the effectiveness of strategies to battle Western wild fires.

The New York Times racked up the highest number of awards, with five, including one for breaking the Eliot Spitzer call-girl scandal.

The list of winners is here. A fuller explanation of what each paper won for is here.

*This post has been updated.

**Update, two: Two Pulitzer notes to consider. The first comes from Mark Lacter at LA Biz Observed. He noticed that none of the awards were for coverage of the financial collapse. I'd picked Gretchen Morgenson as a favorite.

The second, and sadder, note comes from Portfolio, which reports that two of the Pulitzer winners, both from the East Valley Tribune in Arizona, were laid off late last year.

Fear

Fear + Anger = This

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