SPJ/LA Announces 2020 Distinguished Journalists Honorees

Five local journalists and a First Amendment champion will be honored this year as part of the Society of Professional Journalists Greater Los Angeles chapter’s 45th annual Distinguished Journalists Awards.

The honorees are longtime regional journalists working in print, television, radio and digital media. They are: David Allen, columnist for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin; Irfan Khan, staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times; Toni Guinyard, reporter with NBC4; Josie Huang, reporter with 89.3 KPCC, Southern California Public Radio; and Tami Abdollah, national correspondent for USA TODAY.

The Freedom of Information award will go to Nora Benavidez, PEN America's director of U.S. Free Expression Programs.

SPJ/LA presents the Distinguished Journalists awards to members of the profession who have produced an impressive body of work and demonstrated a deep commitment to their craft. The chapter has recognized reporters, editors and photographers in print and broadcast journalism for more than four decades.

In 2008, SPJ/LA added an award for new media, which was later renamed as the digital media category. In addition, the chapter gives the Freedom of Information award to a non-journalist who has helped promote First Amendment issues.

Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the date and location of this year's awards ceremony will be announced at a later time.

The Distinguished Journalists honorees are:

Print (less than 90,000 circulation)

David Allen, a journalist for more than 30 years, began his career in Sonoma County at a weekly. Besides writing articles, he also sometimes shot his own photos, using an old-fashioned proportion wheel to size them. He also pasted up his stories after running them through the hot waxer. Allen has been a fixture for 24 years at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, where he writes a column about local people, places, history, culture, government and whatever else occurs to him prior to deadline. He often shoots his own photos, but in a small sign of career progress, no one has asked him to wax them. Three books collect some of his work, including Pomona A to Z, an alphabetical survey of the city, and Getting Started, which prompted the Los Angeles Times to call him "one of Southern California's most underappreciated chroniclers."

Print (more than 90,000 circulation)

Irfan Khan has been a staff photographer with the Los Angeles Times since 1996. He previously served as a freelance photographer for the publication beginning in 1989. Khan started his career as a commercial photographer in Pakistan in 1973 and moved to Dubai in 1977, where he worked for an advertising agency and at a leading English newspaper. Khan’s assignments have taken him across Southern California and the U.S. Internationally, he has photographed the Hajj in Saudi Arabia and war zones of the Pakistan/Afghanistan border in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He was part of the team awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting for coverage of the 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino. Recently, Khan has memorialized the historic COVID-19 pandemic, capturing riveting photos inside intensive care units, a crematorium and even the DMV. In his spare time, he enjoys listening to semi-classical music of the Indian subcontinent and playing cricket on Sundays.

Television

Toni Guinyard, an Emmy award-winning journalist, joined NBC4 as a general assignment reporter in 2006. She can be seen on the daily morning news "Today in L.A." from 4 to 7 a.m. and the 11 a.m. newscast. Over the course of her two-decade career, Guinyard’s work has earned her several honors, including three Los Angeles Emmy Awards for her live coverage of the Malibu fires, her coverage that showcased the talents of senior citizens in Los Angeles, and for her story on microplastics. She also received two additional Emmy Awards for being part of an “Outstanding Newscast” at NBC4. Her feature, “Empty Lots, Empty Promises,” highlighting the lack of redevelopment in South Los Angeles, won her recognition as a national finalist for the 2007 Harry Chapin Media Awards. Guinyard is passionate about her role as a broadcast journalist and marvels at the trust she has established as an ambassador of NBC4. She believes the community is eager to share their stories and is grateful that they confide in her to tell them.

Radio

Josie Huang is a reporter for 89.3 KPCC, Southern California Public Radio, covering Asian American communities and breaking news. Huang started working in daily newspapers in Massachusetts and Maine, taking on beats in healthcare and municipal government. Her news features sent her around the world, from Central America's largest dump to a Mississippi coastal town recovering from Hurricane Katrina. Huang switched to public radio in 2008 when she joined Maine Public Radio as a host and reporter for the afternoon drivetime show. In 2012, she came on board at KPCC as a producer and reporter for the news and culture show, Take Two. She returned to full-time reporting in 2013 and has since covered immigration, housing and religion in Southern California, always with an eye -- or should we say an ear -- for underrepresented voices in the media.

Digital Media

Tami Abdollah is a national correspondent for USA TODAY covering criminal justice and focusing on the inequities in the justice system. Previously, the native Angeleno served as a senior reporter who helped launch a tech and business journalism startup called dot.LA, which was co-founded by Zillow-founder Spencer Rascoff. Abdollah previously served as a national security/cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in its Washington, D.C., bureau. Prior to that, she was AP's law enforcement reporter in its Los Angeles bureau. She has also worked for the Los Angeles Times and L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC, and has written for the Wall Street Journal and The Daily Beast while living and traveling abroad. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. She has traveled the world on as little as $5 a day, taught outdoor advanced rock climbing safety classes, and is an avid climber and mountaineer.

Freedom of Information

Nora Benavidez is PEN America's director of U.S. Free Expression Programs, where she guides the organization's national advocacy agenda on First Amendment and free expression issues. She works with writers, policymakers, PEN members and community advocates to defend press freedom, combat disinformation, support protest rights and fight back against forms of censorship that chill writers, artists and others. Benavidez is a lawyer by training and, prior to joining PEN America, she worked in private practice and the ACLU of Georgia as a civil and human rights litigator. She has represented victims of unconstitutional police practices, First Amendment infringements and voting rights violations.

CONTACT:  Sarah Favot, sarah.favot@gmail.com