The Independent Takes Home 28 California Journalism Awards; Chad Bianco Doesn’t Want Outside Oversight of His Deadly Jails–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: June 25, 2026

Indy Digest: June 25, 2026

The California News Publishers Association has announced the results of the California Journalism Awards for work done in 2025—and the Independent again did very, very well.

We won 28 awards, including third place for General Excellence in our division. (We won more awards than the publications that finished first and second, for what it’s worth.) The CNPA splits publications into seven contest categories, based on print circulation, website visitors and staffing size. Based on our print circulation (16,000), we get placed into Category 5, which is for publications with a circulation between 11,001 and 25,000, or between 300,000 and 399,000 unique website visitors, or six to 10 full-time employees. (Essentially, we’re in the second of four size tiers for non-dailies.)

Almost all of the publications in our category are much bigger than we are, with a lot more resources than we have—yet we’re one of the top award-winners, because of our amazing staff and contributors.

Here is the complete list of our award-winning work:

• First Place in the Arts & Entertainment Coverage category for Matt King’s coverage of venue openings and closings.
• First Place in the Best Newsletter category for the Indy Digest, by Jimmy Boegle.
• First Place in the Editorial Comment category for “The Unconstitutional, Unchristian Motives Behind Many ICE Raids,” by Jimmy Boegle.
• First Place in the Health Reporting category for: “Health Care Crisis: Local Medical Providers Prepare for an Upcoming Surge of Uninsured Individuals,” by Melissa Daniels.
• First Place in the Online Story Presentation Page Layout and Design category, for CVIndependent.com.
• First Place in the Print Front Page Layout and Design category, with covers by Dennis Wodzisz.
• First Place in the Social Justice and Civic Engagement category for “Hate Emboldened: A Series of Anti-LGBTQ+ Incidents in Palm Springs and Cathedral City Force Residents and City Officials to Take Action,” by Haleemon Anderson.
• Second Place in the Film and TV Writing/Reporting category for “The Coachella Valley Onscreen: After Finding Success With Their First Film, the Men Behind -223 Have High Hopes for the Future,” by Haleemon Anderson.
• Second Place in the Health Reporting category for ‘A Devastating Blow’: Coachella Valley Health-Care Providers Brace for Federal Budget Cuts—and Many of Them Are Afraid to Speak Out,” by Kevin Fitzgerald.
• Second Place in the Informational Graphic category for “Threats to the Safety Net: Local Assistance, by the Numbers,” by Dennis Wodzisz and Kevin Fitzgerald.
• Second Place in the Music Writing/Reporting category for “For Fans Of … : Check Out These Local Musicians Who Have Similarities to Coachella and Stagecoach Artists,” by Matt King.
• Second Place in the Print Special Section category for the Best of Coachella Valley 2025-2026.
• Second Place in the Profile Story category for “Know Your Neighbors: Meet Jason Powell, a Palm Springs High Music Teacher—and a Child-Abuse Survivor Who Tells His Story to Help Others,” by Bonnie Gilgallon.
• Second Place in the Technology Reporting category for “Meeting Kids’ Needs: Palm Springs Unified School District’s eSports Program Showcases the Benefits of Gaming, Technology Reporting,” by Matt King.
• Second Place in the Wildfire Feature Coverage for “Wildfire Ready: Palm Springs and the Rest of the Coachella Valley Are Better Prepared for Blazes Than Before—but Danger Remains,” by Haleemon Anderson.
• Second Place in the Writing category for “Vine Social: Hide the Good Stuff—a Sommelier’s Survival Guide to Thanksgiving Wine,” by Katie Finn.
• Third Place in the Best Newsletter category for 11 Days a Week, by Charles Drabkin, Matt King and Jimmy Boegle.
• Third Place in the Coverage of Business and the Economy category for “Reins of Change: A Proposal to Build Out an Equestrian Community in the Eastern Coachella Valley Promises Badly Needed Infrastructure—but Could Lead to Gentrification,” by Melissa Daniels.
• Third Place in the Editorial Comment category for “ICE Raids Are ‘Causing Fear and Widespread Disruption’ in the Coachella Valley,” by Jimmy Boegle.
• Third Place in the Homelessness Reporting category for “Civic Solutions: The Coachella Valley Rescue Mission Adds Beds for Unhoused Women and Children,” by Melissa Daniels.
• Third Place in the Music Writing/Reporting category for “The Next Generation: Desert-Rock Legend John Garcia Chooses Two Young Bands to Open for Him at Pappy and Harriet’s,” by Haleemon Anderson.
• Fourth Place in the Environment Reporting category for “Conservation Celebration: The Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument Marks 25 Years of Existence as Recovery From the Rosa Fire Continue,” by Kevin Fitzgerald.
• Fourth Place in the Film and TV Writing/Reporting category for “Ahead of His Time: Michael Childers Remembers His Partner, the Late John Schlesinger, With the ‘My Husband Makes Movies’ Series,” by Cat Makino.
• Fourth Place in the Music Writing/Reporting category for “From Paris to the Plaza Theatre: Josh Homme Screens Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘Alive in the Catacombs’ Film With a Live Q&A,” by Matt King.
• Fourth Place in the Tourism/Travel Writing/Reporting category for “Vine Social: Scenes From a Trip to Uruguay, South America’s Best-Kept Wine Secret,” by Katie Finn.
• Fifth Place in the Fine Arts Writing/Reporting category for “Mid-Century Marvelous: Dezart Performs Opens Its New Playhouse With a Concert Version of ‘West Side Story,’” by Jeffrey Norman.
• Fifth Place in the Religion and Faith Writing category for “Music as Religion: Idyllwild’s Audiowild Studios Hosts Concerts to Raise Much-Needed Money—and Prepares to Become a Church, Religion and Faith Writing,” by Matt King.

Congrats to all of the winners—both with the Independent and other publications!

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• The news out of Venezuela is just awful, following two large earthquakes yesterday. The Los Angeles Times reports that the earthquakes offer lessons and warnings for Southern California: “‘Looking through the photos that have been coming through the news, it looks like most of the buildings that we’re seeing that have collapsed are non-ductile concrete buildings,’ (said Maria Mohammed, president of the Structural Engineers Assn. of Southern California). This type of concrete building lacks enough steel to keep the brittle concrete in the columns from exploding when shaken in an earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey has said that non-ductile concrete buildings are one of the building types ‘most likely to kill people during an earthquake. The discovery of the fatal flaw behind non-ductile concrete buildings came during the magnitude 6.6 Sylmar earthquake of 1971. Concrete buildings that collapsed in that earthquake included a 46-year-old Veterans Administration hospital in San Fernando, where 49 people died. … In the last decade, a few local governments, such as the cities of Los Angeles, Torrance, Santa Monica and West Hollywood, have required seismic retrofits of vulnerable non-ductile concrete buildings, although the deadline to get them retrofitted remains years away. L.A. County also recently ordered retrofits of high-rise concrete buildings that are either owned by the county or in the unincorporated area.”

• This story made me emit a long and lengthy sigh. The Associated Press reports: “The Pentagon said Wednesday that boot camps for all the military services are once again requiring the flu vaccination for all recruits after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the shot optional for the military at the end of April. The development, confirmed to The Associated Press by a Pentagon official, comes amid a growing, weekslong, flu outbreak at the U.S. Air Force’s boot camp at Lackland Air Force Base that has sickened nearly 300 people. However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not cleared for public release, maintained that the permission to mandate the vaccinations was unrelated to the outbreak.”

• After a Riverside County grand jury report on jail deaths, some are calling for more oversight of the Sheriff’s Department. KABC says: “More than a dozen families who’ve lost loved ones in Riverside County jails gathered Tuesday on the steps of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, calling for changes to the system following the release of a Grand Jury report examining a high number of deaths in county jails. Advocates and attorneys said the report identified widespread issues within the jail system, including problems with staffing, intake procedures and oversight. … In response to an Eyewitness News request for comment, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said the department would comply with procedural requirements but rejected the report’s recommendations. ‘The office of the sheriff will provide our required response to the Grand Jury as soon as possible,’ Bianco said in the statement. ‘We will not implement any of their recommendations concerning oversight. This current report is worth absolutely nothing and has tarnished the reputation of all previous Grand Jury reports. They should be embarrassed.’”

• Government transparency under the Trump administration is becoming, well, NOT A THING. The latest example of this comes from The Washington Post: “On Friday, a 17-year-old girl drowned in Sequoia National Park after slipping into a river. On Saturday, a 23-year-old man died after falling over a waterfall in Yosemite. The same weekend, a body was found in the desert at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, while a motorcycle accident killed one person in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But recent internal guidance prohibits park staff or other Interior Department employees from directly notifying the public about the deaths. The department, which oversees the National Park Service, had not issued any statements on this weekend’s deaths on the department website or social media as of Wednesday afternoon. The memo, issued in December and reviewed by The Washington Post, states that Interior employees, including park staff and others who communicate with the media, are no longer permitted to confirm deaths or details about severe injuries, a restriction that current and former rangers say breaks with the department’s previous disclosure policy.“

• Could the AI “arms race” between the U.S. and China lead to something very, very bad? A number of experts think so, according to a Wired magazine writer at an AI conference in China: “Frontier AI’s cybersecurity and systemic risks are too serious to ignore, and increasingly capable agentic models could soon cause chaos unless the world’s AI superpowers can work together. ‘AI is a global technology with global benefits, global harms, and a consistent tendency for new capabilities to eventually proliferate,’ Stephen Casper, a computer scientist at MIT who spoke at the conference via video, told me afterward. … The conference, organized by the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, reinforced the idea that both the U.S. and China stand to lose if AI is developed too quickly and recklessly. As AI becomes more powerful, more agentic, and more intertwined with everyday life, the risks that it could be used to conduct cyberattacks or fail in catastrophic ways will only grow. Because the world’s two dominant AI powers are responsible for the most advanced models, cooperation between them feels like it will be crucial.”

• And finally … ABC has launched a campaign to rally support as the Federal Communications Commission ponders punishments. According to The Washington Post: “ABC viewers across the country are getting a message from the network: If you like your local stations, or ‘The View,’ help us get the government off our back. ABC on Monday launched an on-air campaign asking viewers to send comments to the Federal Communications Commission’s website pushing back on the agency and its chairman, Brendan Carr. Since February, the FCC has been investigating whether ABC’s ‘The View’ violated the commission’s equal-time rule, which guarantees equal airtime to all candidates running for the same public office. ABC has maintained that ‘The View’ qualifies as what the commission calls a ‘bona fide’ news program and is exempt from the rule, accusing the FCC of violating the First Amendment in a legal filing. In April, the FCC also ordered an early review of ABC’s eight local stations over its diversity, equity and inclusion practices. The review was announced just days after President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump intensely criticized ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, though the FCC maintained that the timing was purely coincidental.”

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