Review editor wins top award
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Lambert named ‘Editor of the Year’
Half Moon Bay Review Managing Editor Clay Lambert has been named “Editor of the Year” for a weekly publication by the Suburban Newspapers of America.
The 2,000-newspaper association announced its decision on Tuesday morning, noting it selected Lambert for his efforts to train and develop his team of journalists.
"I am really speechless,” Lambert said. “Everyone knows that newsgathering requires teamwork, and I am only as good as the team around me.”
Lambert, 47, has been the managing editor of the small California coastal town newspaper since 2004. Over the course of his leadership, the Review has received numerous awards, including in 2006 when the Inland Press Foundation named the newspaper the best small weekly in the country. Former Review reporters have gone on to work at Google News and the Wall Street Journal.
Lambert’s role was expanded in 2008 when the Review’s owner, Wick Communications, named him editorial director, putting him in charge of guiding the senior journalists for the company’s 28 newspapers.
Earning the top SNA award this week is a new feather in the cap for Lambert after a career in journalism. He has held a variety of newspaper positions since graduating from Colorado State University with a journalism degree in 1986. He was a copy editor, government reporter, assistant sports editor and senior writer over a dozen years with the Gainesville Times, in Gainesville, Ga. He was a general assignment reporter for the Palm Beach Post, and an editor with the Independent Newspaper Group on the San Francisco Peninsula.
Second place in the SNA “Editor of the Year” competition went to fellow Wick editor Dan Shearer of the Green Valley News & Sun in southern Arizona.
Shearer joined the News & Sun in 2009 after 22 years of working a hodgepodge of roles at the Arizona Republic, including copy editor, page designer, reporter and night editor. He has also worked two years at the Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif. and has intermittently taught journalism courses at local colleges.
“The past two years in Green Valley and Sahuarita have been the highlight of my career,” Shearer said. “What we do here matters, and I can see that every day.”
A nonprofit trade association, the SNA represents about 2,000 newspapers that are the primary source for local news in small communities across North America.