From top left: Katie Licari, Semantha Raquel Norris, Erin Stone, Eliza Partika and Jill Replogle.
Three recent graduates, a veteran print and radio reporter and a climate journalist are being honored this month as Los Angeles Press Club SoCal Journalism Award finalists.
Katie Licari (’22) is a finalist for best investigative reporting that is government related and best multimedia package for “Water and Power” published in AfroLA.
A multi-part investigation into the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s presence in the Eastern Sierra, and its impact.
Eliza Partika (’22) is a finalist for best health medical reporting for “How do we treat L.A.’s overwhelmed emergency medicine system?” and best solutions journalism reporting for “Courtroom watchdog program holds Los Angeles judges accountable” published in AfroLA.
(Illustration by Hal Marie Saga)
Semantha Raquel Norris (’22) is a finalist in the investigative reporting category for “Northrop Grumman conceals toxic contamination series” for the San Fernando Valley Sun and personality profile for “Youth kickboxing champion clinches another win” for the San Fernando Valley Sun and el Sol Newspaper.
The Behar family in front of their Winnetka home, July 26. (SFVS/el Sol Photo/Semantha Raquel Norris)
Jill Replogle (’10) and Erin Stone (’19) are finalists for limited series podcast for LAist Studios’ “Imperfect Paradise: Lions, Coyotes, & Bears.” Replogle is also a finalist in three other categories: government-related investigative reporting; public service news or feature; and local political/government reporting, crime/corruption for “Uncovering the Andrew Do corruption scandal” for LAist.
Federal agents during the search of Rhiannon Do’s home on Aug. 22, 2024. Photo by Jill Replogle.
“Imperfect Paradise: Lions, Coyotes, & Bears” looks at the evolving relationship with the three predators people in Southern California have the most conflict and increasingly frequent encounters with.
About the Finalists
Katie Licari (’22) is an investigative and data journalist in Southern California. When she isn’t holding LA bureaucracies, like the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, to account for AfroLA, she can be found tending to tomato plants at her community garden plot. She studied political science and journalism at Santa Ana College and UC Irvine and was a 2022-23 data and graphics fellow at the Los Angeles Times. In 2022, Licari won the Society of Professional Journalists Student Journalist award for investigative reporting for a CalMatters story that revealed holes in the California Office of Election Cybersecurity’s misinformation tracker.
Semantha Raquel Norris (’22) is a Salvadoran-American, award-winning multimedia journalist and documentary photographer from Los Angeles. Norris incorporates her experience working in art institutions into her photography. She expanded her visual practice as a photo intern with CalMatters, and through her participation in the Eddie Adams Workshop and The Kalish Workshop. She is a community reporter with the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol as part of the first California Local News Fellowship cohort. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, CalMatters, Oaklandside, the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol and more. She received her bachelor’s degree from New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study.
Eliza Partika (’22) is a freelance multimedia journalist based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in AfroLA, WebMD, KQED, “Reveal,” the Crescenta Valley Weekly, the Glendale News-Press, the Benicia Herald, CalMatters, UC Irvine News, UC Berkeley Public Health, and other publications. She won first place in Race & Society Reporting at the 2024 L.A. Press Club Awards for a feature on generational trauma and swimming in Inglewood, and third in the Solutions category for a series examining street medicine services on Skid Row. Her most recent work includes an investigation into ambulance offload times in Los Angeles, for which she is nominated this year, and an exploration of the impact permanent housing has on the recovery of domestic violence survivors.
Jill Replogle (’10) is the Orange County correspondent at LAist. She’s worked as a journalist for nearly 25 years and has covered everything from immigration to education to government corruption. She started her career in Central America, reporting for newspapers and radio, and has spent most of the past 14 years working in public media in Southern California. She has a bachelor’s degree in geography from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Erin Stone (’19) covers the climate and environmental crises for local NPR affiliate LAist. Before joining LAist in late 2021, she covered topics such as mental health, domestic violence and environmental issues for newspapers in Texas, Arizona and Northern California. Her work also has been published in National Geographic, Mother Jones magazine and The Atlantic. Stone turned her focus to climate coverage after reporting on the devastating impacts of rising sea levels on communities in the remote Sundarbans islands in India.