The Coronado News for its investigation of the Tijuana sewage crisis took home two national honors at the fifth annual LION Local Journalism Awards ceremony Oct. 3 in Durham, North Carolina.
The Coronado News, a startup that launched in February, won the Outstanding Coverage Award and Public Service Award. The paper is part of North Island LLC., owned by businessman Paul Huntsman whose family has a home in Coronado.
The newspaper joined Santa Cruz Local and Wisconsin Watch as double winners among the 37 winning entries. The contest included 99 finalists from 74 LION member organizations.
The LION Awards recognize excellence by local independent online news businesses in award categories focused on LION’s pillars of sustainability—journalistic impact, financial health and operational resilience.
Recognized for five-part series
The Coronado News was honored for its five-part series on a century-old sewage issue and health crisis affecting Tijuana, Imperial Beach and Coronado that has sickened U.S. Border Patrol agents and Navy SEALs and sent some people to the hospital.
Staff members Dennis Wagner, Craig Harris, Julieta Soto and Madeline Yang wrote and took pictures and videos for the series, which included detailed reporting from Tijuana such as finding 29 families in one part of the city sharing a single hose to get their water. Scott Goldman and Ben Cunningham designed the series in TheCoronadoNews.com and the weekly print edition.
The investigation has resulted in these communities working together, along with other public officials including U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, to try to get the attention of the White House to expedite and increase federal funding for a problem that has existed since the Great Depression.
Most recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom urged President Joe Biden and Congress to immediately release $300 million to renovate and expand an aging sewage treatment plant on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Further, Imperial Beach kids have written President Biden for help, and students at Coronado High School and a bi-partsian group of local women have started Stop the Sewage clubs to raise awareness about polluted beaches following The Coronado News’ series being published from February to March.
Public Service Award
The LION Public Service Award recognizes general excellence in journalistic impact that successfully connects people with the information and services they need to navigate their lives and help make their communities more inclusive and equitable.
The judges said “The Coronado News’ impressive effort in identifying a problem within their community and actively instigating change not only provided a voice to underrepresented individuals but has also highlighted the significant personal health toll.
Their comprehensive and multi-faceted perspective on the personal effects had a tangible impact by prompting lawmakers to advocate for improvements in the situation.”
Outstanding Coverage Award
The LION Outstanding Coverage Award recognizes a LION member who achieved general excellence in journalistic impact by building increased awareness or influencing public conversation about a specific issue that has reverberated throughout a community.
The Coronado News has quickly established itself as a community watchdog and ambitious pursuer of truth.”
-LION judges on the newspaper’s coverage of the Tijuana sewage crisis.
The judges said: “The Coronado News has quickly established itself as a community watchdog and ambitious pursuer of truth. In this series, journalists took an in-depth look at the longstanding problem, why the progress to fix it has been so slow, the systemic failures involved, and who is being harmed. It had an immediate and important impact that should make a difference in finally addressing this crisis.”
About the contest
LION sponsors 10 award categories that are reviewed by an independent panel of judges.
Additionally, LION staff selects the winner of our Community Member of the Year Award, which honors an individual who exemplifies LION’s core values.
This year’s winner is Hanna Raskin, the editor and founder of The Food Section.
LION also offered special recognition and a $500 newsroom donation to The Daily Tar Heel, the independent student newspaper of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to highlight their outstanding work covering recent gun violence on their campus.
While many newspaper contests are based on circulation or staff size, LION’s contest is based upon a publication’s revenue.
The Coronado News, as a startup, entered in the “micro tier” division.
