Clay Lambert wins first place award for editorial excellence

Half Moon Bay Review Managing editor and Wick Communications Editorial Director Clay Lambert has received notice that he has won first place in the Inland Press Association’s Editorial Excellence Awards Contest.

The award was given for a selection of five editorials Lambert wrote in 2007 and 2008. It will be presented during the Inland Press Association’s annual meeting later this month.

The editorials championed the rights of immigrants, chided local government for hiding public documents and took the school board president to task for his dual and conflicting roles in the community, among other things.

"The editorials targeted the failures and foibles of local government using strong language and solid arguments,” according to the judges. “Some stands, no doubt, were unpopular, but necessary, and the Half Moon Bay Review did not shy from any.”

The award was for newspapers with a circulation up to 25,000 readers, which meant newspapers three times the size of the Review were eligible. The Wyoming Tribune Eagle received second place and the Cape Coral Daily Breeze in Florida was the third-place recipient.

The contest was sponsored by the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas.