The San Diego Sun had pretty fantastic results in the 2025 Society of Professional Journalists (San Diego Chapter) awards program on June 26. Our site won seven awards in the non-daily reporting and writing track, including four first-place plaques. We were also picked in the Digital category as the top News Site.
I’ve participated in dozens of writing awards competitions and know they can be highly subjective. Nonetheless, when a judge points their finger your way, it means somebody noticed.
I’m pleased and honored, especially for the group recognition that resulted in the first place win for News Site. In an era where journalism is in jeopardy, we’re striving to give readers quality coverage of our corner of the world (downtown San Diego).
And, hell yes, we’ll use this recognition to promote our future efforts.
It’s laudatory that this site, just four years old and essentially without a real budget, gained recognition in such a wide variety of writing categories.
Stories I wrote were awarded first place in the News, Education and Housing/Development categories.
Giant kudos to recent intern Joshua Silla, who just graduated from San Diego State University and took second place for stories about Food and Multiculturalism and third place for Feature Story (Serious Subject).
“It feels great to not only know that my writing has a real impact on the communities I care for, but to also be awarded for it.”
“To win three awards is insane to me, especially as a young journalist,” Silla says. “It feels great to not only know that my writing has a real impact on the communities I care for, but to also be awarded for it.”
What feels great for me is seeing my former interns, including Silla, Madison Geering (who now writes for the San Diego Business Journal) and Calista Stocker (the new co-editor of SDSU’s Daily Aztec), recently come to lunch and mentor The Sun’s new summer intern, Amelie Mcintosh.
As we chowed down on plates of food at Karl Strauss, the three former interns imparted knowledge to the current intern about best practices for covering this city/neighborhood that’s our beat. Pass the ketchup and pass the flame.
To acknowledge all the people who contribute to The Sun being a first-place News Site, a shout out goes to video reporter Kaushal Patel. The former CNN International anchor and local network news anchor is a downtown resident who regularly and adeptly covers San Diego with a video camera.
Sun photographer Sal Giametta is also a downtown resident, a former city politics insider and a talented camera portraitist who genuinely cares about our town. He spends a good deal of his retirement time taking photos. In July, look for him along the bay for Fourth of July fireworks, shooting images during The Pride March, and out in the sun on Fifth Avenue capturing cosplayers here en masse for Comic-Con.
To me, it’d be a buzzkill to beg for donations at this point. But I do have an ask. Keep reading us. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and advise your friends to do the same. We need exposure. The San Diego Sun isn’t the biggest independent news outlet around — but nobody can top our tenacity or commitment.
And for at least one year, The Sun is the San Diego Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists’ first-place news site. SDSun
