Times Staffers Win Awards

The Los Angeles Times won top honors Saturday in an annual contest sponsored by the Associated Press News Executives Council of California and Nevada.

The group’s Mark Twain Award went to a Times series exploring California schools’ long slide into mediocrity. The series also won the organization’s Fairbanks Public Service Award in its division--newspapers with circulations of 75,000 or more.

The lead reporters on the series were Richard Lee Colvin and Elaine Woo. Other contributors were Nick Anderson, Sonni Efron, Ken Ellingwood, Duke Helfand, Amy Pyle and Doug Smith.

The Times took first place in its division in several other categories. Nora Zamichow’s profile of Jeremy Strohmeyer, the Long Beach youth who killed a girl in a Nevada casino, won first place in features.

Other top awards went to Chuck Philips and Michael A. Hiltzik in the business category for their examination of the conflicts behind the Grammys.

Photographer Al Schaben took the news photo honors for his shot of a teenager and his dog trapped in their overturned vehicle.

Latimes.com captured first place for online newspaper.

Second-place awards went to columnist Al Martinez, and to staff writers Henry Chu, James Flanigan and Art Pine for their examination of the world economy. Photographer Anacleto Rapping won second place in the portrait photo category for his picture of author Harriet Doerr.

Also Saturday, the California Society of Newspaper Editors presented its annual Bill Farr Freedom of Information Award to John Rezendes-Herrick of Mentone.

The award is named for the late Times reporter who spent seven weeks in jail in 1972 for refusing to disclose his sources.

Rezendes-Herrick was fined $500 and sentenced in November to five days in jail for refusing to divulge to the San Bernardino County Grand Jury his sources for stories in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.