SACRAMENTO, California – The Philippine News Today has won an award for outstanding editorial in English during the 2023 California Ethnic Media Awards at the Kimpton Sawyer Hotel in Sacramento last month.

Winning for Philippine News Today was Ramon Faustino Dolor, who writes under the name Beting Dolor.

Dolor’s winning piece was titled “The Disappearance of Cockfighting Aficionados.”

Philippine News Today President and Publisher Francis Espiritu received the award for Dolor and the newspaper.

“Kudos to EMS and CBM,” said Francis Espiritu of Philippine News Today, after attending the first two sessions. “It’s not easy to bring these groups together…you hit a home run.”

Espiritu said he appreciated “the opportunity to pose no-filter questions regarding the budget process, and how officials make decisions on how to spend outreach funds.”

He also noted the breakfast meeting with several elected officials held the morning after to talk about how to navigate Sacramento’s halls of power. Now, he stressed, “we have to be more proactive when it comes to advocating for more support from and access to officials.”

 “The awards are the jewel in the crown of an event that brings ethnic media representatives together with decision makers and their communication experts for the first time,” says Sandy Close of Ethnic Media Services, one of the organizers of the Media Awards and Expo. “The mission driving ethnic media is to produce better reporting for their audiences – having 300 submissions speaks to that aspiration.”

A record number of entries — close to 300 — were submitted for this year’s California Ethnic Media Awards, covering print, broadcast, English and in-language outlets across California.

The 26 judges, who were hand-picked for their cultural and in-language fluency, ranged from professors of journalism to writers, editors, researchers and policy makers from across the state.