Daily Pilot wins 2 statewide awards

The Daily Pilot won two awards for investigative reporting over the weekend in the Best Newspaper Contest sponsored by the California Newspaper Publishers Assn.

Pilot Staff Writer Mike Reicher won first and second place, respectively, in the investigative and enterprise reporting category for his work covering questions about an Assembly candidate’s address and on cell phone towers popping up along the coastline.

The Oct. 10, 2010 piece, “Nguyen’s address in doubt,” focused on Phu Nguyen, a candidate for the Legislature who apparently began his campaign living outside of the district he intended to represent. Nguyen lost the campaign for state Assembly to former Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor.

The July, 25, 2010, cell towers story, “Cell towers get poor reception,” focused on the proliferation and litigation surrounding small cell transmitters in Crystal Cove State Park and other Orange County areas.

Reicher serves as the Pilot’s projects reporter and covers Newport Beach.

In addition, one of the Daily Pilot’s sister papers, the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot, won first place for breaking news photo and second place for lifestyle coverage.

Another sister paper, the Huntington Beach Independent, won second place for breaking news photo.

Each newspaper, which is managed by Times Community News (TCN), a division of the Los Angeles Times, competed in categories for its circulation size. The contest is statewide.

Awards were given Saturday afternoon at a banquet in Los Angeles.

Newspapers owned by Los Angeles Times Media Group won 15 awards. The other TCN papers honored were the Burbank Leader and La Cañada Valley Sun.

Los Angeles Times First Amendment attorney Karlene Goller, who also serves as legal counsel to the Daily Pilot and seven other papers in the chain, received the “Freedom of Information” award.