Award-winning camerawoman Virginia Creighton. (Photo courtesy Rick Griffin/Marketink)
The San Diego Press Club will host its 52nd Annual Excellence in Journalism awards program on Tuesday evening, Oct. 28, at the Encore Event Center, a venue facility at 8235 Ronson Road.
The facility previously housed XETV-TV Channel 6, which operated from 1953 to 2017.
More than 250 people are expected to attend the awards event, which is open to the public. Cost to attend is $60 for SDPC members and $75 for nonmembers.
Reception refreshments to be served starting at 6 p.m. will include no-host bars, spinach and cheese pastries, meatballs on a stick, lumpia and a dessert bar.
Award winners will include reporters, writers, artists, photographers, videographers and public relations professionals, along with college journalists.
This year’s awards program drew more than 800 entries, making it one of the largest journalism competitions in the nation. Judges included members of press clubs in Long Island and Rochester in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orange County, New Orleans, Florida, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Tulsa, and the state of Alaska.
More than 500 awards will be presented in more than 130 categories and 10 divisions, along with two special career achievement awards and two scholarships for college students.
Receiving the career achievement awards will include Virginia Creighton, photo journalist for KGTV-TV, Channel 10, and Julie Wright, founder of San Diego-based public relations agency (W)right On Communications.
Creighton will receive the Harold Keen award, which is given to a journalist who has gone above and beyond throughout their career for the sake of fairness and truth telling.
She was nominated by former colleague (and Times of San Diego reporter) J.W. August and selected by an overwhelming vote of the previous winners, SDPC said.
Creighton has worked for KGTV for 45 years, her entire professional career. She earned a communications degree from Pepperdine University and went to work at KGTV, first as an assignment editor. After what she describes as “decades” on the assignment desk, she shifted into her current role as a photojournalist.
In his nomination of Creighton, August described her work in TV news as “legendary.”
“There are few people of consequence in San Diego who are in or out of the news business who haven’t dealt with Virginia,” wrote August, who currently serves as a Times of San Diego contributing writer.
“She’s been a key part of 10News coverage on so many big stories over the years. Always prepared, always on top of issues. After she left the desk she became a photographer, covering stories in the field with a knowledge of the community that few broadcast camera photographers can match.
“How she handles the citizens who are reluctantly put in the news spotlight is a gold-plated example of her inherent honesty and compassion.”
Creighton said she is deeply honored to receive the Keen Award. “There are so many deserving individuals in San Diego for this kind of honor,” she said. “It’s pretty Keen.”
Creighton’s award is named after Harold Keen, who anchored San Diego’s first television news broadcast in 1949 and was described by colleagues as the modern patriarch of the San Diego news media industry. Keen arrived in San Diego in 1936 as a reporter for The San Diego Sun. He later worked for the San Diego Union, San Diego Magazine and KFMB-TV Channel 8.
In 1981, he passed away from a heart attack at age 69.
SDPC said the Keen award is expected to be presented to Creighton by Keen’s granddaughter Lisa Keen Richard, accompanied by her siblings David Keen and Valerie Keen Styron.
Wright will receive the Andy Mace Award for Excellence in Public Relations. She was nominated by Elizabeth Pecsi and selected by a vote of previous winners. The Mace Award is given to a PR practitioner who, over the course of their career, has exemplified fairness and integrity and has effectively disseminated the truth to concerned publics.
Wright began her career as a journalist, working as a weekend news anchor for the FM radio station serving Whistler, B.C. She founded (W)right On Communications (WOC) in her hometown of Vancouver, B.C. in 1998, and later expanded to San Diego and opened offices in Los Angeles and North Vancouver, British Columbia. Current clients represent legal services, transportation, infrastructure, travel and hospitality industries.
Over the years, WOC has earned national recognition. Recently, the agency was named to the PR News 2026 Agency Elite Top 120 list. The list represents the industry’s most innovative PR, marketing and communications firms in the business, PR News said.
The PR trade publication said in the past year that WOC led one of the most significant outreach campaigns in U.S. legal history, managing communications for a $5.5 billion antitrust settlement involving Visa and Mastercard. The agency’s integrated, cross-platform strategy reached millions of merchants and earned the trust of major industry associations, generating 70 million validated impressions.
WOC also has been named to Newsweek’s list of America’s Best Public Relations Agencies, joining 150 of the most recommended agencies by sector or area of specialization.
Wright serves on the boards of the California Travel Association, where she chairs its communications committee, and of publicly-traded Canadian biotech company Innovotech, Inc.
She formerly served as a trustee of the Tri-City Hospital Foundation, chair of the California State University San Marcos President’s Council, chair and director of the San Diego North Economic Development Council, director-at-large of International Association of Business Communicators Los Angeles chapter and vice-president of the La Jolla Village Merchants Association.
Wright holds a graduate degree in journalism from the University of Western Ontario and a bachelor’s degree from the University of B.C.
On learning about her award, Wright said, “I’m so honored by the nomination and touched to receive this award given what it stands for and those who’ve received it before me.”
Wright’s award is named after Andy Mace, former public relations manager at Pacific Telephone in San Diego. In 1971, Mace is credited with the idea of starting the San Diego Press Club. He later started his own company, Andy Mace & Associates, with an office at the Mission Valley’s Stardust Hotel & Country Club, now the Handlery Hotel. In 2009, he passed away at age 88.
Also at the SDPC event, two college students will be awarded scholarships.
Former Times of San Diego intern and current journalist and award-winner Swasti Singhai. (Photo courtesy Rick Griffin/Marketink)
They include Swasti Singhai, recipient of SDPC’s $2,500 Frank Saldana Memorial Scholarship, and Alfonso Julian Camacho, recipient of SDPC’s $1,500 Honorary Committee scholarship.
Singhai, a San Diego resident, is a third-year student studying chemistry and legal studies at UC Berkeley. She also is a news reporter and editor for her college’s newspaper, The Daily Californian, and was a news intern with Times of San Diego this last summer.
“This scholarship will be super beneficial for me to continue reporting while being a full-time student,” said Swasti.
This scholarship is funded each year by the Saldana family. Frank Saldana was a reporter for 27 years for the San Diego Evening-Tribune newspaper. He died in 2015 at age 87.
Camacho is a student at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, where he is an award-winning journalist, magazine design and writer whose work has been recognized by the Associated Collegiate Press, Journalism Association of Community colleges, College Media Association, and California College Media Association. He writes for The Sun, the school newspaper, and writes and designs for El Sol, the school magazine, two of the nation’s most honored college publications.
Camacho is also the winner of a Pacemaker award for feature writing, which is considered to be the collegiate Pulitzer Prize,
Camacho, who is autistic and suffers from profound apraxia, is unable to speak. He is the author of multiple books in English and Spanish, including “Autistic and Awesome and Preparing for School.” He also is the founder of Colmena Academy, a k–12 school supporting children with speech challenges, and Builders of Eloquence and Engagement, which teaches communication to nonspeaking individuals.
“I am honored and undeserving of this scholarship,” wrote Camacho. “I will use the scholarship to acquire the technology and resources I need to continue my studies. I hope to acquire a keyboard with word prediction on its face that allows me to have faster conversations and conduct better interviews. As a developing speaker, technology-based accommodations are crucial for me. Thank you for helping me achieve this.”
Over the past 15 years, SDPC has granted more than $55,000 in scholarships to talented journalism students who are interested in pursuing a news media career and attending San Diego-area two-year colleges and four-year universities.
For information, visit www.sdpressclub.org.
Retired PR exec will discuss his new Cold War historical fiction novel
Retired public relations veteran turned novelist Roger Conlee, 88, has released his tenth historical fiction novel called “Unhinged.”
Similar to his previous novels, the storyline features the dangerous adventures of Jake Weaver. In Conlee’s ninth novel, called “Lion at Twilight,” Weaver is in Berlin in 1953 to solve an international kidnapping behind the Iron Curtain. The “lion” in the story is Winston Churchill.
In “Unhinged,” Weaver is a former newspaper reporter with the Los Angeles Herald-Express who gets a job as CBS News’ West Coast correspondent. While Weaver is working on a TV documentary on silent movies slapstick comedy, Mack Sennett, Keystone Kops creator, gets shot. Could Hal Roach, Sennett’s prime rival, be behind the shooting?
PR veteran turned journalist Roger Conlee. (Photo courtesy Rick Griffin/Marketink)
As Weaver tries to solve the attempted murder, he also deals with personal death threats after writing editorials critical of the McCarthyism movement, birthed by Sen. Joseph McCarthy who investigated and accused individuals of being communists or communist sympathizers. Also, in “Unhinged,” Weaver has a strained marriage with wife Valerie who works in rocket design for Lockheed.
“In today’s TV news world, Weaver would be known as an abrasive troublemaker who is always in hot water with presidential administrations,” said Conlee. “He would probably work for CNN or MSNBC.”
The plot for “Unhinged” is described as “gunfire, car bombings and death threats rock the Cold War era.”
The back cover copy states, “Jake had no idea what a storm of events he’d be plunged into after switching from newspapers to television news. With his usual historical accuracy, Roger L. Conlee weaves facts with fiction and creates a multi-layered tale about a beleaguered journalist in the Red Scare days of the Cold War.”
Conlee will discuss the book at a public book signing starting at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 30 at the Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, 3555 Rosecrans St., San Diego, in the Midway District.
“It took about one year to write and publish this latest book,” said Conlee. “I began writing in January 2024, and finished the first draft in about eight months. After that, it’s editing, cover design and fine-tuning. I enjoy the book-writing process.”
Conlee acknowledges he’s been a writer his entire life. He was the editor of his high school newspaper at Helix High School in La Mesa (class of 1955). He also served as editor of The Daily Aztec student newspaper at San Diego State University.
While attending SDSU, Conlee worked at The San Diego Union newspaper with the title of “chief copyboy.” His job was to carry typewriter-written stories from one department to another and run errands.
He later became a sportswriter for the San Diego Evening Tribune, a sister newspaper to the Union. From 1967 to 1971, he lived in Chicago and covered the White Sox baseball team and was an assistant to the features editor at the Chicago Daily News, before returning to San Diego to work at marketing agency Phillip-Ramsey as PR director and then as marketing and communications director at the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce.
In 1986, he co-founded his own firm with business partner Brian Butler. Conlee & Butler operated as a successful PR agency until 1995, when Butler went in-house with a banking client and Conlee continued to work as a solo practitioner until retiring in 2004.
“I have a couple of good ideas for future books,” said Conlee. “But, at my age, I can’t be sure. We’ll wait and see.”
San Diego’s One America News launches weekly sports show
One America News Network, a San Diego-based conservative television news channel, has added a weekly, one-hour sports show to its programming lineup.
Former professional basketball player John Salley is hosting “The Best Darn Sports Show” that airs on Fridays at 9 p.m., Pacific time. The show, featuring sports discussions along with news, culture and political commentary, is repeated on OAN on Saturdays and Sundays at 4 p.m., Pacific time.
“I’ve been looking for the perfect outlet that allows me to express my insights into basketball and sports, and also dive into culture, life and politics,” said Salley. “OAN gives me that freedom. I’m excited to bring fans not only my experiences from four NBA championship teams, but also to connect with audiences on the wide range of issues and conversations shaping our country today.”
The 6-foot-11 Salley, who attended Georgia Tech, was a first-round draft pick in the 1986 National Basketball Association draft. He played for 24 years with five NBA teams, including the Detroit Pistons, Miami Heat, Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers. His teammates included NBA superstars Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman.
“John Salley is a living legend,” said show producer Carl Dawson. “His four NBA championship rings with three different franchises speak for themselves, but what really sets him apart is his ability to translate that championship mindset for everyday viewers. Unlike many sports hosts who analyze from the outside, John’s lived it on the biggest stage. That authenticity will make this show truly one of a kind.”
Richard Levine, OAN president of distribution, said, “We’re absolutely thrilled to bring John Salley to OAN’s lineup. His insight, intelligence, and charisma add tremendous depth to our programming. Viewers will get thoughtful, engaging conversations that bridge sports, culture and current events, which is exactly the kind of content our audience values most. This show will be a standout addition to our growing network.”
OAN, operated by San Diego-based Herring Networks, Inc., is available to more than 100 million viewers worldwide on several major U.S.-based carriers, including Spectrum TV, YouTube TV, Dish Network and Sling, along with international distribution on Hotbird 13 available in Europe and Hotbird 7/8 covering the Middle-East and North Africa. OAN also offers a 24/7 live streaming app under the “OAN Live” name.
Rick Griffin is a San Diego-based public relations and marketing consultant. His MarketInk column appears weekly on Mondays in Times of San Diego.
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