Jonathan Gold was awarded this year's prize for criticism, becoming the first food critic ever to win a Pulitzer. The judges praised Gold's "zestful, wide ranging restaurant reviews, expressing the delight of an erudite eater." Gold finished in first place for Food Writing in 2005's AltWeekly Awards and is a four-time James Beard winner. This marks the sixth Pulitzer awarded to an AAN member: The Village Voice's Teresa Carpenter won for feature writing (1981); the Voice's Jules Feiffer won for cartooning (1986); the Boston Phoenix's Lloyd Schwartz won for criticism (1994); the Voice's Mark Schoofs won for international reporting (2000); and Willamette Week's Nigel Jaquiss won for investigative reporting (2005). UPDATE: See scenes from LA Weekly's celebration of Gold's win. Read AAN News' Feb. 2006 interview with Gold.
Sources tell Editor & Publisher that the alt-weekly's food writer, Jonathan Gold, is a finalist in Criticism, along with the Los Angeles Times' Christopher Knight and Mark Swed. Gold finished in first place for Food Writing in 2005's AltWeekly Awards, and placed second last year. Pulitzer winners will be announced April 16.
Three Village Voice Media writers won first-place awards in the Association of Food Journalists' annual Awards Competition, it was announced at the group's conference on Saturday (press release here in PDF format). Jonathan Kauffman of East Bay Express won the Restaurant Criticism category in the division for papers with circulation under 150,000; Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly won the same category in the circulation 150,000-300,000 division. In addition, Ron Russell of SF Weekly won first place in Food News Reporting, circulation 150,000-300,000. They will each receive a $300 cash prize.
The prestigious James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards were announced Monday at an awards reception in New York (which was hosted by none other than AAN's favorite speaker, Cokie Roberts) and four Village Voice Media writers were awarded first-place medallions. Jonathan Kauffman of East Bay Express, Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly, Kristen Hinman of Riverfront Times, and Dara Moskowitz of City Pages triumphed in four of the seven categories in which alt-weeklies were eligible to participate. And one of the other winners -- The Times-Picayune's Brett Anderson -- formerly did his writing in the pages of the Washington City Paper.
Foodies at Creative Loafing (Atlanta), Riverfront Times, Westword, L.A. Weekly, East Bay Express, City Pages (Twin Cities), Phoenix New Times, and Houston Press picked up ten of the 21 nominations for which they qualified in the 2006 James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards announced today. The complete list is available as a PDF here. Alt-weeklies were particularly dominant in the "Newspaper Writing on Spirits, Wine or Beer" category, in which all three nominees are AAN members. The awards recognize and honor excellence and achievement in the culinary arts.
Alt-weeklies walked away with half of the 18 winning entries in the under-150,000 circulation category of the Association of Food Journalists awards announced last week. New Times foodies at Dallas Observer, SF Weekly and Riverfront Times each picked up a first-place prize, while Houston Press' Robb Walsh took home both a first- and second-place. Independent Weekly, Creative Loafing-Atlanta and Willamette Week were the other AAN winners in the AFJ's small-paper category. LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold, who won first-place in this year's AltWeekly Awards Food Writing category (Walsh placed second), also won first-place for Restaurant Criticism in the AFJ contest, in the 150,001-300,000 circulation category.
