Vindicated ...

Several of my students and I attended the Society of Professional Journalists San Diego awards dinner last night. The staff collectively won eight awards, including second place Best College Newspaper, behind San Diego State's Daily Aztec. Among the awards were first places for news coverage and crticial arts review. All of this follows our Best of Show ribbon and Best News and Best Focus on School at this year's county fair Student Showcase.

But there was one award in particular that struck close to home for several of my students and me.

City Times' first place award for Best Editorial was significant for more than just the fact it won over professional nondaily newspapers. It served as vindication regarding an issue that deeply hurt my students and greatly offended me.

The award-winning editorial can be found here: City Times editors respond to Zenger's

My blog has several entries in 2009 detailing the nasty public campaign waged against my students and me by a man named Leo E. Laurence. I won't go into the details here ... they're all in my 2009 blog entries on this site. But ultimately, the truth of the situation did indeed win out.

The ultimate vindication comes in the fact that it was the contest judges in the SPJ contest that found the editorial to be of superior quality, written by a collective of the City Times staff defending themselves against unsubstantiated allegations of homophobia (including openly gay student staff members).

It's ironic given the fact that Laurence himself served on the San Diego SPJ board and SPJ's national diversity committee. The ethics SPJ developed and stands by today were clearly not in use when Laurence published his personal claims as "news" in a small publication called Zenger's Newsmagazine, distributed in print in San Diego and on the City College campus.

The articles Laurence created remain online. But at least Zenger's itself is fading, and deservedly so after what its publisher allowed ... Publisher Mark Gabrish Conlan announced recently that Zenger's is ceasing publication.

In the announcement, Conlan thanked Laurence, "who for most of Zenger’s existence has been my associate editor and who has written more of Zenger’s than anyone except myself. Leo is a living legend ... I regard Leo as a close friend and admire his commitment, dedication and drive. I’ve strived to make Zenger's worthy of his association with it."

Good riddance, if that's the case.

My students' Best Editorial award and the fading of the publication serve as the final vindication that my students were in the right ... and that I was right to defend them.