That's Award-Winning Tim Cavanaugh to You

The Southern California Journalism Awards, which honor news organizations from San Diego to Santa Maria, threw some love in Reason's direction this past Saturday. Jersey boys-made-good Tim Cavanaugh and Nick Gillespie finished First and Second in Online Commentary; I was one of the three other finalists they crushed like a grape. Here's what the judges said about young Tim:

Writing is lively, entertaining and thought-provoking, but more important is Cavanaugh's resistance to pigeon-holing. His willingness to reject knee-jerk ideology makes each column a treat full of surprises designed to delight and fascinate the reader.

Our Democratic Convention coverage also won First Place for Best Weblog (partial judges' comment: "Reason uses well-placed humor to replace the mud-slinging and hate that all too often overflow from political coverage"); and my "Temporary Doves" essay pulled a Second.

Some friends of Reason were also honored -- former staffer Mariel Garza (whose blog is here) came in Second for Columnist of the Year, and Advice Goddess Amy Alkon got a First and two Seconds for columnizing and headline-writing.

How to top this orgy of self-congratulation? With a subscription pitch, of course! Twenty bucks (minus three cents) for one year is, as Jerry Brown might say, as reasonable as magazine deals get.