The winners in the 19th annual Lincoln Steffens Award for Investigative Journalism are Kevin Courtney and Mark Johnson. Their first place story, "Ed Keith Apartments," ran in the Napa Valley Register and told a story about renters and landlords that is all too familiar but often neglected by the media, according to Dr. Jonah Raskin, Director of the Lincoln Steffens Award, and the Chairman of the Communication Studies Department at Sonoma State University.
Second place this year goes to Linda Goldston for her story, "Zoo Animals to Go," which was published in The San Jose Mercury News and told a hard-hitting story about the abuse of animals in captivity.
Third place goes to Janet Wells for her story "Mercury Rising" which appeared in the The Sonoma County Independent and told a story about mining and pollution in the North Bay.
"We had exceptionally strong entries for 1999," Dr. Raskin said. "We had entries from big papers like the Mercury News and Sacramento Bee and entries from weeklies like The Independent. It's good to see that investigative journalism is still alive and well."
The five judges for this year's contest were: Mara Brosnan Liebel and Jim Sweeney from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat; Erik Cummins from the Santa Rosa Herald Reporter; Marian Schinske from the Point Reyes Light and Ben-t Leigh, faculty advisor to the Sonoma State Star and the Santa Rosa Junior College Oak Leaf.
Awards will be at Rita's in Santa Rosa at 6 pm on Thursday, May 25 and are open to the public. For more information call Andrea
Granahan, President of the Press Club at (707) 876-3320 or email navgal@mail.monitor.net.
