Variety garnered a record 96 nominations for the SoCal Journalism awards sponsored by the Los Angeles Press Club, with nods across magazine and entertainment journalism, art and photography, video, audio, online content and social media during the 2022 calendar year. Among the nominations announced Friday were Tim Gray for print journalist of the year and Clayton Davis for online journalist of the year. In addition, Owen Gleiberman, Chris Willman and Daniel D’Addario were nominated as entertainment journalists of the year.
“We are extremely proud of our newsroom for a banner year in record-breaking traffic, hard-hitting investigative journalism, profile writing and video. These nominations are a testament to the great work Variety is doing covering the entertainment industry,” said Variety co-editor-in-chiefs Ramin Setoodeh and Cynthia Littleton.
In the online categories, Variety.com was nominated for best traditional news organization website. In the art/photography category, the “Best 100 Movies of All Time” feature was nominated for best issue, along with the cover feature on Lizzo and portraits of Magic Johnson, Olivia Wilde and Lizzo.
Among the feature stories recognized were Elizabeth Wagmeister’s “Money Always Matters: The Kardashians Tell All About Their New Reality TV Reign” and Ramin Setoodeh’s “Johnny Knoxville’s ‘Jackass’ Growing Pains: How a Violent Bull Stunt Made Him Stop Living Dangerously” and “The Story of Hugh Jackman in Five Acts.”
In the business features category, Brent Lang and Diane Garrett are nominated for “Hollywood Nightmare: From Netflix’s Stock Swoon to Mass Layoffs, Anxiety Grips Industry.” Lang was also nominated in film or TV feature for his cover story “Brendan Fraser’s Triumphant Comeback: How Playing a 600-Pound Gay Man in ‘The Whale’ Resurrected His Career.”
Three Variety writers — Chris Willman, Jem Aswad and William Earl — were recognized in the music criticism category, with D’Addario recognized in theater criticism and Willman in film criticism.
In the television entertainment news and features categories, Variety was recognized for a video feature on “The 74th Annual Emmy Awards: Snubs & Surprises” and for “The Take: Biggest Moments From the 2022 Oscars.” In addition, Kate Arthur was nominated for the video feature ”‘Stranger Things’ Creators Discuss ‘George Lucas-ing’ Will’s Birthday, Updating Season 4 After It Premiered, and Their Not-So-Secret Spinoff Show.”
Variety’s Awards Circuit podcast, hosted by Michael Schneider, Clayton Davis, Jazz Tangcay, Emily Longeretta and Jenelle Riley, was also nominated in the audio anchor/host category.
Variety won seven prizes at last year’s SoCal Journalism Awards. For the complete list of nominees, see here.
The 65th Southern California Journalism Awards will be held June 25 at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel.