California Journalism Awards Gala 2024

Paul Pringle

Paul Pringle is a Los Angeles Times reporter who specializes in investigating corruption. He won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting with colleagues Matt Hamilton and Harriet Ryan in 2019, was a finalist in 2009 and a member of reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2004 and 2011. Pringle won the George Polk Award in 2008 and CNPA’s First Amendment Award in 2014.

Wendy Fry

Wendy Fry is an Emmy-winning multimedia investigative journalist who reports on poverty and inequality for the California Divide team. Based in San Diego and Mexico, Wendy has been covering the California border region for more than 15 years and covers immigration, reparations and issues affecting San Diego-area families.

Noah Biesiada

Noah Biesiada is Voice of OC’s county reporter, covering the board of supervisors and the $9 billion government they oversee. He started as an intern in 2019, helping launch Voice of OC’s disaster news coverage and report on the cities of south Orange County. His reporting is focused on county agencies such as the sheriff’s department, the courts, and other departments along with Irvine and Huntington Beach.  His reporting has led to reforms across Orange County governments including the Orange County Power Authority, the OC Fire Authority and Irvine’s Great Park.

Sara Rubin

Sara Rubin is the editor of the Monterey County Weekly newspaper (and Monterey County Now digital platforms), where she has worked since 2010. She has been editor since 2016, leading an award-winning team of journalists covering local news at the largest-circulation news outlet in Monterey County. In addition to exploring the region as a journalist, she enjoys hiking, paddleboarding and ocean swimming.

Moderator: Julie Makinen

David Loy

David Loy is an experienced First Amendment and open government lawyer who has been legal director of the First Amendment Coalition since February 2022. Before that, he was legal director of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties for almost 16 years. He graduated from Northwestern University School of Law in 1994.

Jennifer Upshaw Swartz

Jennifer has more than 25 years of experience working as a reporter and editor at newspapers in suburban Chicago, eastern North Carolina and the Bay Area. She holds a BA in history and journalism from the University of Oregon and an MSJ from Northwestern University.

Alexei Koseff

Alexei Koseff covers Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Legislature and California government from Sacramento. He joined CalMatters in January 2022 after previously reporting on the Capitol for The Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Chronicle, where he broke the story of Newsom’s infamous dinner at The French Laundry restaurant. He has written about California politics and government for more than a decade, twice winning the Sacramento Press Club award for best daily Capitol beat reporting.

Moderator: Jeff Glasser

Tim O’Rourke

Tim O’Rourke is vice president, content strategy for Hearst Newspapers. He is the founder of the Hearst DevHub, an editorial innovation team focused on interactive storytelling, computational journalism and generative AI applications. Previously, he was director of product strategy and managing editor for the San Francisco Chronicle.

James Tyner

James Tyner is the senior product manager at news startup The San Francisco Standard, where he has led major initiatives like a site redesign and implemented project management tools and processes. Previously, he was the product manager for newsroom tools and new formats at the Los Angeles Times, where he worked on improvements to the newsroom’s digital tools and workflows and new ways of telling stories online. Tyner graduated from the journalism program at USC Annenberg.

David Lesher

David Lesher co-founded CalMatters in 2015 and served as editor-in-chief until May 2023. Previously, he was Director of Government Affairs at the Public Policy Institute of California. Lesher has more than 25 years of journalism experience, largely at the Los Angeles Times where he was a political writer, state Capitol reporter and assistant national editor for the White House campaign. He also has served as editor of California Journal magazine and as California Director for the New America Foundation.

Moderator: Von Raees

Emilie Raguso

Emilie Raguso has covered Berkeley crime for more than a decade. She was senior news editor at Berkeleyside, and launched and ran Albany Patch before founding The Berkeley Scanner. In 2017, she was SPJ NorCal’s journalist of the year. She previously worked at Patch.com and reported on crime for the Modesto Bee.

Eric Johnston

Eric Johnston is CEO of Sonoma Media Investments and publisher of The Press Democrat and six other North Bay publications. He previously served as president, West Division, for Adams Publishing and was COO of Pioneer Publishing. He was publisher of the Modesto Bee and Merced Sun-Star. He is chair of the board of the California Press Foundation.

Kate Franco

Kate Franco is the Executive Editor of The Desert Sun. During her 24-year tenure at the paper, she served as news editor, features editor, magazine director and spearheaded The Desert Sun’s events and partnerships initiatives. Before coming to the California desert, she was an editor at various publications in Wisconsin and Rhode Island.

Moderator: Michael Yamashita

Vandana Kumar

Vandana Kumar is a publishing executive with a 36-year track record in the industry. She leads the India Currents Foundation as President and CEO. As a new immigrant, she co-founded India Currents magazine in 1987 and published an award-winning print magazine from 1987 to 2017. Fully digital today, India Currents has the largest following among Indians in the United States.

Joe Rivano Barros

Joe Rivano Barros has been a reporter and editor for Mission Local. was born in Sweden, where half of his family received asylum after fleeing Pinochet, and spent his early childhood in Chile; he moved to Oakland when he was eight. He attended Stanford University for political science and worked at Mission Local as a reporter after graduating. He then spent time in advocacy as a partner for the strategic communications firm The Worker Agency. He rejoined Mission Local as an editor in 2023.

Alicia Cocchi

Alicia Cocchi is a senior audience engagement editor at The Standard. Previously, she held roles as a senior social media manager and video producer for Wired Magazine and as a live show and video producer at KRON4, where her work earned her three Emmy nominations for editing and producing.

Moderator: Julian Do

Elodie Maillet Storm

Elodie Maillet Storm is CEO of CatchLight, which leverages the power of visual storytelling to better represent, inform and connect communities. CatchLight is building a new collaborative model for community-centered visual journalism. In 2016, Elodie was named a JSK fellow in media innovation at Stanford University. Prior to that, she spent 11 years at Getty Images, where she oversaw and helped build Getty’s content offerings and helped lead its strategic development. Elodie co-founded Getty Images’ high-end portraiture and fashion division, Contour,.

Semantha Raquel Norris

Semantha Raquel Norris is a Salvadoran-American photographer and journalist from Los Angeles. She received her bachelor’s degree from New York University, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, and a master’s from the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She was selected as part of the Eddie Adams Workshop XXXVI cohort, and her work has appeared in publications including CalMatters, New York Times, The Oaklandside and the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol.

Sree Sripathy

Sree Sripathy is a South Asian visual journalist and writer from San Jose. She was a CatchLight Local Fellow working as a staff photographer for India Currents Magazine from 2022-2024. Her work focuses on community,  immigrant identity, language and culture.

Moderator: Kent Porter

I’ve been at the Press Democrat 37 years and was an integral part of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting for the 2017 Tubbs Fire. I’m an eight time National Press Photographer west region Photographer of the year, three years consecutively.

Janet Wilson

Janet Wilson is an award-winning journalist who currently covers the California desert and co-writes USA Today’s Climate Point newsletter. She has investigated everything from Donald Trump’s divorces to juvenile violence in Detroit to which farmers guzzle the most Colorado River water. She has won a Nieman fellowship and was a lead reporter on the Los Angeles Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning wildfire coverage.

Claudia Boyd-Barrett

Claudia is a long-time journalist based in Southern California. Her investigative stories on domestic violence and access to mental health care have resulted in legislative and policy changes, on both the state and county level. She is a two-time USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism fellow and a former Inter American Press Association fellow.

Rose Ciotta

Rose Ciotta, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor, is the investigations and projects editor for EdSource, an education news organization based in California. At the Philadelphia Inquirer, she co-edited the 2012 Gold Medal winner on violence in city schools. She is also the founder of the Investigative Editing Corps, a national organization that links editors with local newsrooms to do investigative reporting. She is a former board member of Investigative Reporters and Editors and attended Stanford University as a JSK journalism fellow.

Moderator: Martha Diaz Aszkenazy

Eric Johnston

Eric Johnston is CEO of Sonoma Media Investments and publisher of The Press Democrat and six other North Bay publications. He previously served as president, West Division, for Adams Publishing and was COO of Pioneer Publishing. He was publisher of the Modesto Bee and Merced Sun-Star. He is chair of the board of the California Press Foundation.

Armando Carmona

Armando Carmona is a media and content strategist, developing strategies for regional, state and national campaigns. Much of his work uplifts Latinx voices, storytelling and media. An Inland Empire native, Armando is committed to supporting the local community news and information ecosystem as the lead consultant for the Inland Empire Journalism Innovation Hub + Fund (home of Press Forward Inland Empire).

Alma Martinez

Alma’s professional journalism career started at the nonprofit public radio network Radio Bilingue, where she focused on issues facing Latino, immigrant, and farmworker communities including healthcare access, environmental health, education, and civic participation. Prior to joining CVJC, Alma served the region’s diverse communities in the public and private sector. Born in Mexico, Ms. Martinez immigrated with her parents to California’s Central Valley at the age of three.

Moderator: Erik Cushman