Congratulations to Kasia Anderson, who won a 2014 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award for her story on Pasadena City College’s awkward and offensive treatment of one of its most famous alumni, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.

Read the prize-winning story: “Dustin Lance Black Speaks: Pasadena City College Officials Created ‘Toxic and Dishonest’ Atmosphere.”

Anderson took home the prize for best online news reporting. Her article detailed the dis-invitation of Black from PCC’s commencement ceremony. Black told the Truthdig editor in an interview that the decision was “blatantly homophobic.”

The judges called it “an excellent piece of journalism that exposes the need to fight the intolerance of officials at any level.”

The National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards were presented Monday at the historic Millennium Biltmore hotel in Downtown Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Press Club.

Producer Quincy Jones was honored for his philanthropic work, and said at the event that growing up poor in Chicago gave him no choice but to be offended by poverty, whether in Soweto or Cambodia. He said if he had not discovered a piano while thieving as a child, he would be dead or in jail.

— Posted by Peter Z. Scheer

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