Three Bee journalists win Sacramento Press Club awards, including ceremony’s top honor

Michael McGough
·3 min read

The Sacramento Press Club recognized three Sacramento Bee journalists Wednesday for outstanding work published in 2022, including the prestigious journalist of the year award.

That honor went to Sam Stanton, whose reporting and investigative work produced illuminating insights in the form of exclusives and deep dives into some of last year’s biggest news stories.

Bee visual journalist Xavier Mascareñas won for best photography feature, and columnist Melinda Henneberger won for commentary.

Stanton’s dogged reporting last year led to exclusive stories pertaining to Sacramento’s deadly downtown gang shootout in April, a decision by California Highway Patrol officials to give a suicidal CHP officer his gun back and the Sherri Papini kidnapping hoax, among many other stories.

“He repeatedly held power to account,” Sacramento Press Club judges wrote of Stanton, who has been with the newspaper for more than 30 years.

Following the awards reception at the Mix in downtown Sacramento, Stanton wrote that he was “a little overwhelmed” by the Sacramento Press Club honor, but thanked his editors and colleagues for supporting his work.

Mascareñas won the photography award for stunning images he captured of Karuk Tribe fishermen in Siskiyou County. The Sacramento Press Club judges called his photography “excellent” and his captioning “stellar.”

Ron Reed, of the Karuk Tribe, pulls a salmon out of the Klamath River while fishing with his traditional dip net at Ishi Pishi Falls on Sept. 29, 2022, in Siskiyou County. “We’re the second-largest tribe in California,” he said. “In the last five years we’ve caught on average 50 fish a year … that isn’t taking care of much of anything,” he added. “This year we had a great year, so we’ve had a lot of people come down here to be able to touch and spark relationships that have kind of went dormant because of lack of fish … it’s good to see that the connection is still there, but without fish, our culture is dying.”

Henneberger earned the award for commentary, with judges recognizing “incredible story-telling as she brings readers face-to-face with the humanitarian crisis of homelessness.” In December, Henneberger shared the story of Mark Rippee, a blind, severely mentally ill homeless man who died after years of living on the street in Vacaville.

Other Bee finalists at Wednesday’s awards ceremony were reporter Sawsan Morrar and data journalist Phillip Reese, nominated for education reporting; reporters Dale Kasler and Ryan Sabalow, for impact in journalism; reporter Ari Plachta, for environmental reporting; deputy California opinion editor Josh Gohlke, for commentary; and visual journalist Renée C. Byer, for feature photography.

The Sacramento Press Club is a nonprofit organization that supports aspiring college journalists with scholarships.

This year’s event marked the third annual award ceremony for the Sacramento Press Club. All proceeds from the awards reception will go toward scholarships for students, according to the organization’s website.