Variety scored 16 first-place wins Sunday night as the Los Angeles Press Club handed out the 68th annual Southern California Journalism Awards.
Variety’s top finishes included wins for music criticism, for music chief Jem Aswad; Owen Gleiberman, for film criticism under 1,000 words; and Aramide Tinubu, for TV criticism. The kudos were presented during a lengthy ceremony held at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
Variety went into the night as the top nominee overall with 100 mentions. The Southern California Journalism Awards span print newspapers and magazines, TV, radio and digital news outlets as well as radio, podcasting and social media. Variety‘s victories were spread widely among the largest editorial staff in the industry dedicated to entertainment business coverage.
Variety‘s other first-place winners were:
Selome Hailu for feature under 1,000 words: “How Planned Parenthood’s Caren Spruch Works With Lena Dunham and Other Creatives to Sensitively Portray Abortion on Screen”
Brent Lang for film/broadcast-related feature online: “Controversy Swirls, Legal Threats Fly After Sundance Documentary ‘The Stringer’ Questions Origin of Iconic ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo”
Trish Deitch for personality profile: “‘I Can’t Not Be Who I Am’: Jamie Lee Curtis on Her 47-Year Career, Falling in Love With Christopher Guest and Why She Hopes Charlie Kirk Found God”
Ellise Shafer for personality profile, music and arts personalities: “Diana Silvers on Her Debut Album ‘From Another Room’ and Following Folk Heroes by Speaking Truth to Power: ‘If Your Art Doesn’t Scare You, It’s Not Really Worth It’ (EXCLUSIVE)”
Richard Phibbs, Jennifer Dorn and Jennifer Halper for entertainment photo: the May 2025 cover “A$AP Rocky”
Daniel D’Addario for obituary appreciation for film and TV personalities: “Hollywood’s Humanist: Rob Reiner Was a Gifted Collaborator Who Understood Why We Tell Stories”
K.J. Yossman for consumer news or feature: “BBC Crisis Explained: How the Beloved U.K. Broadcaster Walked Into One of the Worst Scandals in Its 100-Year History — and Where It Goes From Here”
Kate Aurthur for film feature, production histories: “Bravo Boss Frances Berwick on the ‘Joy’ of BravoCon and Who Can Be Forgiven by the Network (Karen Huger!) — and Who Can’t (Jen Shah, Probably)”
Naman Ramachandran for theater/arts feature: “‘MJ the Musical’ Star Jamaal Fields-Green on the ‘Huge Responsibility’ of Playing Michael Jackson on Stage”
Ethan Shanfeld for music feature: “Inside the Diddy Trial Circus: How Screaming Fans, Baby Oil and Street Preachers Turned the Courthouse Into a Madhouse”
Ramin Setoodeh for entertainment feature, TV/streaming related: “Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri Aren’t Holding Back: ‘After the Hunt’ Stars on Making the Year’s Most Provocative Movie”
Brian Steinberg for culture news/ TV feature-related: “CBS Put ‘Evening News’ Through Massive Overhaul. Now It Needs People to Watch”
Brian Steinberg for business reporting: “TV News Faces Creator Chaos as Anchors Chase Digital Dreams That Bring Big Bucks (or Return Little Reward)”
Gleiberman also finished in second place in the category of film critic over 1,000 words. Steinberg placed second in the competition for online journalist of the year, as did D’Addario in the category of print journalist of the year.
Honorary awards were presented at the ceremony to Rob Fukuzaki, veteran Los Angeles sportscaster at KABC-TV, for lifetime achievement; singer Kenny Chesney, for public service; NBC News’ Craig Melvin, for social impact; and civil rights attorney Carol Sobel, for defense of journalists.
Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa was recognized with the club’s Daniel Pearl Award recognizing extraordinary courage and commitment to journalism in the face of adversity. Ressa, a crusader for press freedom and investigative reporting in her native Philippines, chilled the crowd with her story of having spent years investigating Southeast Asian links to the Al-Qaeda terror cells responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks, and for the brutal January 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
Ressa warned the room full of the region’s top journalists of what she called “the Philippine-ization of America” and she urged them to “hold the line” on First Amendment rights and protections. She cited her own experience of facing 11 separate prosecutions in her homeland for doing her job as a journalist. Ressa noted that she had to get permission from the nation’s top court to travel to Los Angeles to receive the award in person. But her primary tormenter, former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested last year under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
“Here I am in front of you,” Ressa told the crowd. “He’s now in prison at The Hague awaiting trial.”
Ressa pointed to Pearl’s tragic death and said it is often on her mind as she pursues a dangerous profession. The current era is no less treacherous for journalists given the attacks on media in so many countries and declining public trust in journalism. In the end, in a time of what Ressa called “information armageddon,” journalists have to be brave in the execution of their work. Pointing to the alarming spread of misinformation and outright “lies,” Ressa said, journalists need to ask themselves, ‘What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?’ “
(Pictured top: “After the Hunt” stars Michael Stuhlbarg, Ayo Edebiri, Chloë Sevigny, Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield photographed for Variety’s September 2025 cover story on the Luca Guadagnino film)
