CalMatters wins for common perfection in the Online Journalism Awards

From Sonia quicklyCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

CalMatters was declared the best medium-sized newsrum in 2025 Awards for Online JournalismS The new CalMatters Andrew Losowsky product director won the Association Impact Award. The honors were announced on Friday at the New Orleans Online News Awards ceremony.

In addition, one of the members of the Calmatters, Robert Hernandez, was excellent with Rich founder’s awardS

First place, general perfection

CalMatters won first place for Overall Among the average news halls.

The judges have said that “chose to honor the innovative project for digital democracy and a complete guide for multi -platform voters, recognizing a winner who fully meets the criteria for common achievements. These useful, practical instruments and their stories that have led to the real impact have stood out.

Accepted the award for calmatters and said, “it is deeply meaningful to be cited for this work by people. Behalf of the 80 People at Calmatters and All The Other Folks Who Wit with Us: The Partners We Have Around California, Around The Country – A Number of Wom Are in This Room – The Broadcastes HELP US GET THESE OUT TO PEOPLE.

Here are some of the accents of Calmatters’ work in the last year:

• Our stories and instruments made government actions and solutions, linked, held the leaders responsible and provided the Californians with vital information to engage with their government – which led to the state. In journalism, the impact may take seconds or it may take years. As for the big problems, we carry constantly, accountability and this year we saw that this leads to a widespread impact: a California State Audit (triggered by an investigation by Calletats of 2023) finds that the law that is intended to reveal who funds the trips sponsored by state laws fallstate lawsters advanced new bill To increase the supervisory supervisor for homeless (direct citation of continuing Calmatters investigation Under conditions inside the homeless shelters) and the political guard of California fined Former $ 106,000 legislator on campaign funding (after Calletats from 2020. Story). This is only part of the impact we hadS
• Our voter guide was a resource of a power plant that helped Californians understand how they wanted to vote. In 2024, we have reached our widest audience so far, from Meeting with voters where they wereS We created Tiktok videos and filters, we started an interactive vote visualization tool, we partnered with local publications to show readers articles related to their voting, created magazine-style quizzes that are the Hundreds of Californians used in the 4 events of the persons, prints for voters. trainers. One of five voters in California uses our guide.
• Ours Digital democracy The platform, launched in 2024, shows video and transcripts from each hearing, registers each vote, provides data on lobbyists and an easy way to track the bills. We have also trained journalists in 20+ news halls on how to use our AI tables generated. With the help of our tables, CBS News partnered with us to reveal that systematically legislative legislation of California systematically avoids transparency and accountability by killing controversial legislation without voting for the protocol. Digital democracy has been awarded Amy and won the Poynte Institute Punch Sulzberger Award for Innovation of JournalismS

Congratulations to the finalists Propublica, Mother Jones/Center for Investigation of Reporting and Texas Tribune.

Calmatters was a Finalist In the same category of common perfection among the average news halls last year, won by Propublica. The marking, now part of Calmatters, earned The award last year amidst little news.

Finalist, social media engagement

CalMatters was a finalist for Excellent achievements in social media engagement Among the average news halls.

Last year, CalMatters used Tiktok to share information about the voter manual and meet with the younger voters where they are:

• Made for gene z tiktoks: We have experimented a lot, failure multitude times before we find ours First viral success When we began to break California’s suggestions using a call center format. We have created skits where a reporter played both a confused voter and a call center expert. Tiktokers began to pay attention, and we continued, making and trying organic ways to reach young Tiktok voters.
• Starting our own Tiktok filter: As in the previous elections, we have created online interactive quizzes that helped California voters find out where they are at each of the proposals across the country. But in 2024, after being inspired by the light -hearted beauty industry Tiktok filters who asked viewers to vote for makeup by tilting their heads, we created a series of Tiktok filters asking you if you think the rent is too devilish – and other similar questions – which could be able to do it. This year. (S)Our demonstration.) Our quiz filters have been used over 20,000 times in the two weeks before the election.
• Working with California influencing: For the first time, Calmatters works with influencing to make sure that our voter guide has reached the young Tiktok voters. We have chosen six influents based on common criteria – they were in California, they usually posted lifestyle videos and considered young adults as one of their main audiences. We also asked them to reveal clearly that Calmatters sponsor their publication, to create videos in their own voice, and to tell their audience about our voter guide.

Congratulations to the Marshall project, which won, and our fellow finalists, National Geographic and Baltimore Banner. This is the first honor of Salmatters in the category “Perfect in Social Media”.

Influence

The new CalMatters Andrew Losowsky Product Director won this year ONA Impact RewardS It is a honor for a “tracking individual whose work in digital journalism and dedication to innovation have a significant impact on the industry, regardless of their management in journalism.”

Rodney gibs, an ona board member, Present the Award and Said, “Andrew’s Work on Developing the Coral Project… Brown the Comment Sension of the Modern Era, and It Created a System That His New Role at Calmatters, He’s Bringing That Organization’s Award-Winning Journalism to a Broader Audience, and Through Deelopment of Tools and Processes, He is Helping To To What’s Going on Inside Their state.

Accepting the award, Losovsky said: “True impact arises when journalism improves the life of the communities it serves. … The real community is much more than an audience. Communities are groups of people who engage, interact and support.

He continued, discussing the latest attacks on independent journalism, “for our industry, for this nation, for each of us in this room and there, if and when (targeted attacks against people and journalists) come, I look forward to being strong in the community, together.”

Before joining Calmatters, Losowsky was the founder of Coral, a community platform used by more than 500 major news websites in 28 countries. He has ruled Coral for ten years, managing his acquisition by VOX Media and monitoring the Community’s strategy throughout the organization.

Losovski is a co-creator of perspective, a project that helps journalists find inspiration from a wider spectrum of work and practice and generates relationships with experts in other industries. He is also an adviser to the documented and founder of the newspaper for news products.

The award of the founder of the Jarglos

The award, awarded to the CalMatters member, Robert Hernandez, is for someone who “has advanced significantly or has made a lasting contribution to the field of digital journalism through his work in the industry and who is an exceptional commitment to the mission, value and vision of Ona.”

Hernandez is a professional practice professor at USC Annenberg, who focuses on the study and development of the intersection of technology and journalism. His work emphasizes the empowerment of people through informative reporting and storytelling, community commitment, growing models for distribution of content and supporting journalism financially.

Accepting the award, Hernandez said: “Despite my chaos Muppet Energy, they gave me this award.

Hernandez thinks about how he learned through his career that every time he was in the room where decisions occur, he brings a frightening responsibility to have the courage to speak and that journalists have the responsibility to speak.

“You have to talk and challenge each other with love and respect,” Hernandez said. “Use your voice, however trembling.”

Sissy Wei, CEO of Calmatters and Markup, said she had known Hernandez since she was a journalism student who has been trying to limit her interests.

“He was so supportive of journalism students everywhere, not just those who had the pleasure of taking their hours,” Wei said. “He wanted everyone to experiment, get opportunities, press and press the industry. And through his own work he did just that. And he did it in a way that included and raised his students.”

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.