We’re Honored

The 2007 AltWeekly Awards finalists were announced this month by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, bringing news that the L.A. Weekly has garnered the most nominations in the contest’s history: a total of 13 finalists. These writers, artists, photographers and designers are up for honors in the following categories, competing in the large-circulation division:

Arts Feature, John Albert (“Death, Drugs, Rap and Redemption”)

Blog, Nikki Finke (Deadline Hollywood Daily)

Cartoon, J.T. Steiny (Native’s Notebook) and Dwayne Booth (Mr. Fish)

Column, Seven McDonald (24 Seven)

Feature Story, Matthew Fleischer (“Navahoax”)

Food Writing/Criticism, Jonathan Gold

Media Reporting/Criticism, Daniel Hernandez

News Story — Long Form, Christine Pelisek (“Scourge of Skid Row”)

News Story — Short Form, Jeffrey Anderson

Photography, Kevin Scanlon, (2006 People issue)

Special Section, Weekly staff, “Best of L.A.”; Web site Design, John Curry.

Winners will be announced at the AAN convention in mid-June.

To make the month of May even merrier came the release of nominations for this year’s Southern California Journalism Awards, given through the L.A. Press Club. The Weekly racked up 29 finalist spots, including four contenders in journalist of the year categories:

Christine Pelisek and David Zahniser for Journalist of the Year, large-circulation category

Nikki Finke in the Entertainment Journalist of the Year category, print and Web

John Curry for Designer of the Year, print and Web.

Other finalists: Hard News, Daniel Hernandez (two nominations) and Josh Kun

News Feature, Judith Lewis (“The Lost Streams of Los Angeles”) and Christine Pelisek (“Scourge of Skid Row”)

Investigative/Series, Jeffrey Anderson/Christine Pelisek (“Broken Bridges”) and Christine Pelisek (“Scourge of Skid Row”)

Entertainment Reviews/Criticism, Jonathan Gold (food), Doug Harvey (visual art) and Kate Sullivan (music)

Entertainment Hard News, Nikki Finke (Deadline Hollywood)

Entertainment Feature: Paul Cullum (“Death Race 2000”), Steven Kotler (“The Heidi Chronicles”), Steven Leigh Morris (“Guerrillas in Our Midst”)

Special Section, staff (“Who We Are: L.A. People 2006”)

Headline, Libby Molyneaux and Steven Mikulan (two nominations)

Design, Ryan Colditz/Shelley Leopold

Feature Photo, Kevin Scanlon

Editorial Cartoon, Dwayne Booth, Lalo Alcaraz

Photo Essay, Orly Olivier

Online Entertainment News, Nikki Finke

Weblog, Individual, Marc Cooper.

Finally, the Missouri Lifestyle Jour­nal­ism Awards were announced this week, bringing good news to the L.A. Weekly’s Judith Lewis. Two of her pieces were among three finalists in the Consumer Affairs category: “Green to the Core” (Nov. 11–17, 2005) and “Who’s Resurrecting the Electric Car?” (July 14–20, 2006).