{"id":367587,"date":"2026-06-19T20:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/367587\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T20:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:46:10","slug":"daily-pilot-and-timesoc-staff-haul-home-several-o-c-press-club-award-honors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/367587\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily Pilot and TimesOC staff haul home several O.C. Press Club award honors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Staff writers for the Daily Pilot and TimesOC newspapers earned several awards and honors during the annual Orange County Press Club\u2019s Excellence in Journalism<\/a> awards held on Wednesday at the Anaheim Hills Country Club.<\/p>\n

The event honored outstanding journalism in 2025, an otherwise chaotic year that kept reporters busy on the beat. The pair of Times Community News outlets walked away with seven honors total, including three first-place finishes.<\/p>\n

Two of those coveted ice blue first-place awards belonged to the Daily Pilot\u2019s intrepid reporter Matt Szabo. <\/p>\n

He won top distinction in the Best Sports Story category for his feature \u201cNewport Harbor baseball staying strong in the face of a player\u2019s unexpected loss<\/a>,\u201d which employed eye-catching empathy in retelling how high school athletes rallied around their teammate after his father unexpectedly died.<\/p>\n

Szabo also finished first in the Best Arts\/Culture Story category with the dispatch \u201cHuntington Beach man using \u2018homeless\u2019 moment to spread awareness<\/a>,\u201d which recounts how local artist Chapman Hamborg turned having the police called on him as a perceived homeless man into art advocacy. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be versatile and write about a wide range of topics at a community newspaper, and I enjoy the variety that brings on a day-to-day basis,\u201d Szabo said. \u201cThe two stories that won are similar, in that they are both about people making the best of unfortunate situations. Really, that\u2019s all we can do sometimes, right? I hope that the story and the writing really resonates with our readers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Goei's <\/p>\n

Goei\u2019s story of red meat and reciprocity at Mikiya in Irvine won Best Food\/Restaurant Review at the O.C. Press Club awards.<\/p>\n

(Edwin Goei)<\/p>\n

Both categories featured honors for a valued Pilot contributor, Scott French, whose \u201cHuntington Beach tunes up for final as Loyola plays through tragedy<\/a>\u201d finished third for Best Sports Story and staff writer Andrew Turner, who gained an honorable mention from judges in Best Arts\/Culture Story for \u201cSawdust Festival brings \u2018magic\u2019 during kickoff event for its 59th season<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

TimesOC staff writer Sarah Mosqueda won second place in the battle for Best Food\/Restaurant Story with the delectable dispatch, \u201cNew panaderia in Santa Ana is a sweet addition to the neighborhood<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mosqueda also earned third-place honors in the Best Music\/Entertainment Story category for the feature \u201cThe Coach House Concert Hall celebrates 45 years in San Juan Capistrano<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contributor Edwin Goei captured first place in the competitive Best Food\/Restaurant Review Story category with his bursting-at-the-seams TimesOC tale, \u201cHow I ate more Japanese A5 Wagyu than I ever had in my life \u2014 while being timed<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of the night, the Daily Pilot and TimesOC staff had a good time \u2014 and a good haul of O.C. Press Club awards.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a thrill for our newsroom when we learn some of our colleagues have been recognized for their work, so we were so happy to see Matt, Andrew, Sarah and our contributors, Edwin and Scott, do so well in this year\u2019s stiff competition,\u201d said Carol Cormaci, TCN\u2019s executive editor. \u201cAlso, the Press Club itself should receive kudos for the work they do throughout the year, especially in the area of encouraging up-and-coming journalists through their scholarship program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Staff writers for the Daily Pilot and TimesOC newspapers earned several awards and honors during the annual Orange…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,149075,149074,149080,149072,149077,63425,47055,1043,5592,14552,149078,149076,149079,149081,149073],"class_list":["post-367587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-best-arts","tag-best-food","tag-best-sports-story-category","tag-chaotic-year","tag-culture-story-category","tag-daily-pilot","tag-dispatch","tag-event","tag-feature","tag-honor","tag-pilot-contributor","tag-restaurant-story","tag-scott-french","tag-staff-writer","tag-timesoc-staff-haul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}