Variety wins eight first places at the SoCal Journalism Awards

diversity

diversity won eight first-place awards, including a grand prize for editor-in-chief Brent Lang as entertainment journalist of the year, at the Los Angeles Press Club’s 66th annual SoCal Journalism Awards on Sunday night.

diversity For the 2024 ceremony, 74 nominations were submitted, representing work published by staff online or in the weekly print edition during the 2023 calendar year.

Lang led the staff honors list by winning three awards in total. In addition to his Entertainment Journalist of the Year trophy, Lang also won in the Personality Profile/Magazine category for his cover story on Michael J. Fox, and he shared the Entertainment Feature/TV award with Tatiana Siegel and Matt Donnelly for their story “Showstopper! Strikes plunge Hollywood into chaos with costly film delays, pay fights and AI fears.”

Siegel won twice, sharing the latter award with Lang and also winning in the entertainment news/magazine category for the story “A fired ‘Scream’ star, clients fired by agencies and a secret meeting with Tom Cruise: Inside Hollywood’s divide over Israel.”

Brian Steinberg also won two awards: He took first place in the TV Commentary/Analysis category with “David Zaslav wants to gut cable networks – CNN won’t be so easy to transform.” He also took first place in the Personality Profiles/TV Personalities category with his story “Streaming News gave Kasie Hunt a few curves – now she’s smoothing them out.”

Selome Hailu won the Personality Profile/Film Personalities category for the article “Lily Gladstone on accepting criticism of ‘Flower Moon,’ Mollie’s agency, and Scorsese’s limitations in telling an Osage story.”

Chris Willman received the award for Entertainment Commentary/Art for his commentary, “Jason Aldean already had the most despicable country song of the decade—the video is even worse.”

The 2024 awards were presented at a gala dinner attended by more than 500 journalists and guests in the historic Crystal Ballroom of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

A full list of first, second and third place winners of the SoCal Journalism Awards will be posted soon on the LA Press Club website. The organization said it received a record 2,300 submissions this year from LA-based publications and journalists.

In addition to the evening’s competitive awards, six distinguished journalists or public figures were honored with honorary or lifetime achievement awards during the 66th annual gala, including actress Jane Seymour (presented by Kevin Ryan), Amanda Salas of Fox 11 (presented by Jerry O’Connell), Stephen A. Smith of ESPN, Mickey H. Osterreicher of the National Press Photographers Association (presented by Adam Rose) and Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal (presented by Judea Pearl). Gershkovich was presented his award in absentia as he remains in custody of the Russian government, which accuses him of espionage.

The 2024 SoCal Journalism Awards were given “in loving memory” of two beloved local journalists who passed away this year. Ruth Ashton Taylor’s career stretched back to the 1940s before she made history as the first female news anchor on the West Coast. She died in January at the age of 101. Sam Rubin, the entertainment anchor of the weekday KTLA Morning News, died on May 10 at the age of 64.

The SoCal Journalism Awards are one of two awards ceremonies hosted each year by the Los Angeles Press Club. The other, the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards, which recognizes work from across the United States, will next be held at the Biltmore on December 1, 2024.