LOS ANGELES – Actress Jane Seymour and ESPN sports analyst and commentator Stephen A. Smith will be among the honorees Sunday at the Los Angeles Press Club’s 66th SoCal Journalism Awards Gala.
Seymour will receive the Bill Rosendahl Public Service Award, honoring her active support of numerous charitable causes, most notably her Open Heart Foundation, which supports children in need and creates awareness for women’s heart health.
Smith, best known for his work on ESPN’s “First Take” morning show and as a longtime analyst on “NBA Countdown,” will receive the Joseph M. Quinn Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Press Club’s highest honor. The award is named in honor of Joseph Quinn, a veteran reporter, war correspondent and editor who took ownership of City News Service in the mid-1950s. He was president of the Los Angeles Press Club when its journalism awards were introduced to recognize local journalistic excellence.
Past winners of the Quinn Award include Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, Otis Chandler, Stan Chambers, Dan Rather, Pat Harvey, Rick Orlov, John Schwada, Willow Bay, Nick Ut, Lester Holt, Jim Hill, Andrea Mitchell and David Ono.
Also during the event, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia for more than a year, will be presented with the Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism.
“We are extremely pleased to see the Daniel Pearl Award being awarded to Evan Gershkovich who, like Danny before him, has come to symbolize press freedom and the importance of truthful reporting,” Judea Pearl, father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, said in a statement announcing the honor. “We hope this award brings hope and encouragement to Evan as he is awaiting justice, and sends a strong message to the Russian government that, despite attempts to disrupt world orders, the free world still holds the safety of journalists as a sanctuary of civilized society.”
Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 by Russia’s Federal Security Service and charged with espionage, marking the first time since the Cold War a U.S. journalist has been charged in Russia as a spy. The Wall Street Journal and U.S. government have both strongly denied the allegations against Gershkovich.
The award is given in memory of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, a Birmingham High School graduate who was kidnapped and killed by Islamic radicals in Pakistan in 2002.
Also set to be honored during the gala are Fox11 entertainment reporter Amanda Salas, who will receive the President’s Award for Impact on Media; and Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel to the National Press Photographers Association and photojournalist, who will receive the Guardian Award for Contributions to Press Freedom.
The gala at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles will be dedicated to the memory of Ruth Ashton Taylor and Sam Rubin.
Taylor was the first female newscaster in Los Angeles and the only woman in Edward R Murrow’s postwar radio documentary unit. She died in California earlier this year at age 101.
Rubin was a long-time entertainment reporter for KTLA5 and a beloved local TV personality who died in May at age 64.
