The Business Journal earned two 2nd-place awards in a statewide journalism contest for its business coverage and design.

The annual Better Newspapers Contest is hosted by the California News Publishers Association, and features submissions from papers across the state. The winners were announced Saturday during the Association’s summit in Santa Monica.

An article headlined “Construction-defect litigation bankrupts Clovis homebuilder,” published April 1, 2016, tells the story of Generation Homes, which filed for bankruptcy protection because of a series of construction-defect lawsuits filed by homeowners in a 240-home subdivision in Reedley.

It was written by former reporter George Lurie, and submitted in the category “Coverage of Business News.”

One of the submission’s judges wrote: “Mr. Lurie examines how the state’s business unfriendly laws allowed homeowners up to a decade to file litigation against the story’s General Contractor. Lurie explains in fairly layman’s terms what brought about the crisis and how the owner of Generation Homes struggled to serve his customers, albeit under very difficult circumstances. The author makes the reader feel genuinely sympathetic, but does not wallow in sentimentality, preferring to just relate the facts.”

The Business Journal also won second place in the category of “Front Page Tabloid” for the front-page design of its Jan. 22, Aug. 5 and Sept. 9, 2016 newspapers.

The paper also won five “Honorable Mention” honors — essentially third place — in four different categories: Two in Agricultural Reporting (written by Lurie and former reporter Chuck Harvey, and one each for Coverage of Education (former reporter Hannah Esqueda), Profile Feature Story (Valerie Shelton) and Environmental Reporting (Harvey).