The Business Journal took in its largest-ever haul of California Journalism Awards with 10 first-place and seven second-place recognitions for work published in 2024.

The Business Journal is celebrating its largest-ever haul of California Journalism Awards, awarded over the weekend by the California News Publishers Association.

The newsroom and production teams earned 10 first-place and seven second-place awards for work published in 2024, as well as several other third-place awards and on. The Business Journal competes statewide against other weekly newspapers with circulation of 4,301-11,000.

The Business Journal’s weekly vertical emails shined in the category of “Best Newsletter.” The “Executive Dining Guide” took first place, while “Real Estate Weekly” took third and the “Daily Update” took fourth.

The Business Journal dominated the category of “Agricultural Reporting,” winning first place for its coverage of Hanford-based Central Valley Meat’s acquisition, consolidation and layoffs at the Cargill beef plant in Fresno. The Business Journal also earned third place in the category with its coverage of avian flu and fourth place for farmland selloffs.

For the category “Technology Reporting,” The Business Journal’s newsroom earned first place for a story package about artificial intelligence, and also took second for a story about Black-owned tech firm Quiq Labs.

In the category of “Home Page Layout & Design,” thebusinessjournal.com took first place. For the category of “Illustration,” Cecilia Lopez, lead graphic designer, won first place for her Farmer’s Almanac and INC 5000 graphics. In the “Print Front Page Layout & Design” category, The Business Journal design team, which includes Israel Meave, won second place.

 

For “Coverage of Business and the Economy,” The Business Journal took first place for a story by reporter Frank Lopez, “Employment on the spectrum: Individuals can excel in the workplace with the right help.”  Also in that category, Lopez won third for his story “Fresno Area Hispanic Foundation expanding entrepreneur mission into new downtown office.” Fifth place went to The Business Journal’s coverage of the global IT outage of 2024.

In the “Labor Reporting” category, Lopez took first place for the story “Inside the numbers: Valley’s union membership during ‘Labor Summer.’” The story was based on a list of local labor unions prepared by researcher Alex Light with data provided by the Central Labor Council.

For “Coverage of Youth and Education,” Lopez took first place for his story “Fresno engineering firm collaborates with Fresno State for worker pipeline.” Former Business Journal reporter Estela Anahi Jaramillo took third place in that category for her story “College pathway partnerships bear fruit in the Central Valley.”

For the “Print Special Section” category, the Made in the Central Valley 2024 manufacturing supplement took first place. For “Print Special Section Cover,” The Business Journal also took first.

In the category of “Tourism/Travel Writing/Reporting,” reporter Ben Hensley took second for a story about tourism spending. For “Fine Arts Writing/Reporting,” Hensley also earned second place for his story “Local music teachers hope to reboot Fresno’s paid theatre scene.”

 

In the category of “Housing and Land-Use Reporting,” The Business Journal took second for its series of stories about the Scannell warehouse project in Fresno.

For “Food Writing/Reporting,” The Business Journal took third for its story about Yolked Kitchen and fifth for a story about a former journalist who returned to work at the family donut shop.

In the new category of “Audience/Community Engagement Award,” The Business Journal took second for its annual “60 Ideas in 60 Minutes” program. First in the category went to Pleasanton Weekly.

For “Sports Feature Story,” reporter Dylan Gonzales earned second place for his story about a local developer’s nostalgic trip to the A’s last game in Oakland. Jaramillo’s story about a Fresno State athlete’s experience with name, image and likeness rights won fourth place.

For “Breaking News,” Lopez earned third place for his story headlined “From Clovis to Paris, via Egypt: Local manufacturer to make Olympic debut.” The Business Journal also won third place of the new “Social Media Innovation Award.”

Other local news teams including Fresnoland, Valley Voice , GV Wire and more also won California Journalism Awards.