(Nov. 8, 2002) The California Chicano News Media Assn. today announced the winners of its 4th Annual Ruben Salazar Journalism Awards recognizing work published or broadcast in California that exemplifies journalistic excellence while contributing to a better understanding of Latinos in the United States.

The awards will be formally presented at a reception in San Jose, CA on Friday Nov. 15, 2002. Cash awards of $250 will be given in each of the four categories of Print, Television, Radio and Photography.

For the first time in the competitionís short history, a Los Angeles Times photographer did not win the Photography Award. Carlos Puma of The Press-Enterprise in Riverside won for his photo "Mexican Rodeo," which the judges said captured both emotion and action.

The judges said: The photo that captured both emotion and action during what appears to be a charreada. Well composed.

Producer Roland de Wolk and reporter Randy Shandobil of Oakland station KTVU Channel 2 won in the Television category for their story "Jalisco," which gave a face and voice to immigrants who come to the U.S. in search of a better life. David Serrano photographed the story, and Ron Acker edited it.

The judges said: The story told the real story behind the story of the influx of Latinos in the U.S, giving voices and faces to the migrants.  "Jalisco" goes beyond your everyday immigrantsí story.  In fact, it gives immigrants in search of a dream and a better life in the U.S. a face and a voice often lost in statistics and numbers and most times not even covered by general market stations particularly in English language.  "Jalisco" shows that in order to achieve their dreams most immigrants leave entire families behind.  In fact, their dreams represent everything America represents.... and their contributions are just as valuable in shaping our country.

In the Print category, Ken Ellingwood of the Los Angeles Times won for his story "Graveside with John Doe," a poignant story of the sad task of handling the bodies of migrants who die along the U.S.-Mexico border in a desperate bid to reach the U.S.  Ellingwood spent a week in 100-plus-degree desert heat to track the recovery of bodies by coroners to autopsy to the pauperís graveyard.

The judges said: Unrelenting detail. Moving. Gave a sense that, though the temptation is to treat the migrants dying in the desert as mere statistics, they are human. Described the efforts of those who must deal with the aftermath of nameless bodies as they try to give them names and humanity.

The Radio Award was won by Eric Manuel Roy for his series "Immigrant Millions," which aired on KCRW-FM in Santa Monica. His story described how prior to a decision by a half dozen California banks to officially recognize the matricula consular as valid I.D. many undocumented immigrants were often robbed and beaten, and now they have deposited large amounts of money into banks.

The judges said: This story makes a difference by educating the general audience and the Latino community to the danger many immigrants face because they can't open bank accounts. They are too often robbed and killed.

Members of the Arizona Latino Media Association in Phoenix judged the entries.

The awards are named after the late Ruben Salazar, who at the time of his death in 1970 was a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and news director of Spanish-language television station KMEX in Los Angeles.  Salazar was one of the first Latinos to work at a major English-language newspaper, and one of the first to begin writing about Latino issues in the late 1960s.

CCNMA is a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization housed at the University of Southern Californiaís Annenberg School of Journalism. The group, with 400 members statewide, is dedicated to the advancement of Latino journalists and to fostering fair and accurate portrayals of Latinos in the news media.