Salt Lake Tribune wins regional journalism awards

Results are starting to roll in for the annual Best of West Contest, which recognizes the best journalism produced by news websites, newspapers and magazines in Utah and 13 other Western states. Already, The Salt Lake Tribune has won awards — the only Utah news organization to have won so far.

Winners include:

Aaron Falk, Christopher Kamrani and Tony Semerad took first in sports reporting for their "Culture Fuses with Football" project on the impact of Pacific Islanders on Utah football and in Utah generally.

"Thoroughly reported and well-written," the Best of the West judge wrote of the package. "Easily could have just glorified the cultural connection."

Leah Hogsten placed second in news photography with her photograph of a slain police officer's son attending his father's funeral.

The judge wrote, "The boy wearing the dad's badge was the final selling point. Terrific angle and framing capped it all off."

Paul Beebe won third place in business and financial reporting for "KSL has lost its grip," a look at why KSL-TV's ratings have fallen for the past few years.

"A refreshing surprise, well-presented and much deeper than expected at first glance," the judges wrote. "When local TV news ratings took a sudden and dramatic shift, sending the market's decades-long leader into second place, the Tribune – conceding that it has a news-sharing relationship with the new leader – took a hard and fair look at the reasons behind the shift.

"Although the topic initially seemed lighter than those tackled by other contest entrants, we found this to be among the most well-done, with the business angles made clear – and we suspect it was among the most well-read in the bunch."

Congratulations to all The Tribune winners in this competitive contest.

All the Best of the West results are available here.