J-School student and alumni win SPJ awards

Joaquin Palomino (’15) was named SPJ NorCal’s Outstanding Emerging Journalist for a pair of articles he wrote for the East Bay Express about California water allocation, and a story about tribal artifacts that have been contaminated with dangerous chemicals. The award is the third that Palomino has received this year for his agricultural reporting; the Peninsula Press Club has also honored the second-year, and he was the recipient of the J-School’s Randy Shilts Memorial award.

The J-School’s recent grads also continue to rack up journalism awards. Sean Greene (’14) took an award in the Special Student Project category for his master’s thesis, Climate California. The multimedia news package explores some of the ways California is working to combat climate change.

“Sean moved beyond the typical back and forth debate over climate change to look at the actual impact it is having in California and how scientists and researchers are addressing that. And he combined that reporting with a very visually appealing multimedia presentation that really drew you into the story,” said Paul Grabowicz, director of the J-School’s New Media program.

Samantha Grant (’07), a current visual journalism lecturer at the J-School, won an award in the Journalism Innovation category for “Decisions on Deadline,” an interactive journalism game where users are confronted with deadline-based dilemmas. Adithya Sambamurthy (’10) won a public service award for “The VA’s Opiate Overload,” the Center for Investigative Reporting’s report on the increasing number of opiate prescriptions given to U.S. veterans. Daffodil Altan (’04) won an award for her reporting on “The Box,” a CIR video about teens who are placed in solitary confinement. Monica Lam (’04) earned an award in the Feature Storytelling category for “Finding Hidden Genius,” a KQED story about a program that is teaching Oakland youth to code. And Michael Mechanic (’94) was honored for his work on “It Was Kind of Like Slavery,” a Mother Jones feature about a Florida school with a history of child abuse.

View the complete list of winners at the SPJ NorCal website.