PBS SoCal and KCET Honored with Five National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards Presented by the Los Angeles Press Club
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JP Shields
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Los Angeles, Calif. – December 4, 2023 – PBS SoCal and KCET, Southern California’s flagship PBS stations, announced today 5 wins (plus several 2nd and 3rd place honors) from the National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards presented by the Los Angeles Press Club. With nominations spread across 13 different categories honoring locally produced content from KCET and PBS SoCal, winners were announced in all categories presented during a ceremony in downtown Los Angeles at the Millennium Biltmore on Sunday, December 3. The event also paid tribute to PBS’s Finding Your Roots, author and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who received the 2023 “Luminary Award for Career Achievement” as well as to actor, director, producer, educator and lifelong literacy advocate (PBS’s Reading Rainbow) LeVar Burton who accepted the Distinguished Storyteller Award. A complete list of winners can be found at lapressclub.org
KCET Original arts and culture series ARTBOUND received the most recognition going into the night with 11 nominations and winning in the Business/Tech Arts category for what the judges called a “Well-produced piece and creative storytelling and editing by the KCET staff about the NFT phenomenon.” Receiving 2nd and 3rd place accolades were ARTBOUND documentaries “A New Deal for LA” that looked at publicly funded arts programs across the city as well as “Giant Robot: Asian Pop Culture and Beyond” which celebrated the iconic magazine that created an appetite for Asian and Asian American pop culture.
PBS SoCal’s LGBTQ+ themed DEAR IKE: Lost Letters to a Teen Idol won top honors in the Category of Documentary or Special Program, Feature, (over 30 minutes). The animated documentary from filmmaker Dion Labriola recounts his childhood quest to contact his teen idol Ike Eisenmann.
In the Soft News Feature, Arts/Culture (Under 5 Minutes) category, KCET’s digital team was honored for their work “Gay Men’s Chorus of L.A.: Raising Voices of Joy” which combined poignant interviews with Gay Men’s Chorus members with historical footage of the chorus during the height of the HIV epidemic, showing the importance of the chorus to the gay community.
Two additional wins went to photojournalist Osceola Refetoff for “Photojournalist of the Year” — his second time winning this award from the LA Press Club — and a second 1st place award in the “Photo Essay” category.
PBS SoCal/KCET 1st place honors are listed below:
Documentary or Special Program, Feature, over 30 minutes
Soft News Feature, Arts/Culture — Under 5 Minutes
Business, Tech/Arts
Photo Essay
- Osceola Refetoff, “Toxic Individualism is Hurting the Alabama Hills. Indigenous Knowledge Can Save Them.”
Photojournalist of the Year
- Osceola Refetoff
About PBS SoCal and KCET
PBS SoCal and KCET are both part of the donor-supported community institution, the Public Media Group of Southern California. PBS SoCal is the flagship PBS station for diverse people across California and delivers content and experiences that inspire, inform and educate. PBS SoCal offers the full slate of beloved PBS programs including MASTERPIECE, NOVA, PBS NewsHour, FRONTLINE, and a broad library of documentary films with works from Ken Burns; as well as educational content including PBS KIDS programs like DANIEL TIGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD and CURIOUS GEORGE. KCET showcases the best of PBS and is a leading source for arts, culture, and news in Southern California. Through innovative storytelling, KCET explores and expresses our dynamic local communities helping residents understand and connect with the region's diverse communities and ideas. For additional information about both KCET and PBS SoCal productions, web-exclusive content, programming schedules and community events, please visit kcet.org and pbssocal.org KCET Originals and PBS programming are available to stream on the FREE PBS App on iOS and Android devices, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV, Samsung Smart TV, and Chromecast. KCET is also available to watch live on YouTube TV.
