Rancho Santa Margarita Patch Editor Named Online Journalist of the Year

By Patch Associate Regional Editor Paige Austin

During the 1984 World Series in San Diego, Fred Roggin and Martin Henderson stood in the same media lounge meal line and discussed the San Diego Padres and Detroit Tigers.

Sunday night, nearly three decades removed from Jack Murphy Stadium, they were alongside each other once again at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. NBC4 sports anchor Roggin had just received the Joseph M. Quinn Award for lifetime achievement and distinction, and Henderson had just been named Online Journalist of the Year.

They were among more than 90 winners at the 55th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards and Centennial Celebration, presented by the Los Angeles Press Club. Ten press clubs from around the nation judged this year’s record number of entries.

Henderson, the local editor for Rancho Santa Margarita Patch and Lake Forest Patch, earned high marks from judges who tabbed him over other outstanding candidates, including a former Pulitzer Prize winner, as the standard for work on the Internet in 2012.

In the presentation, judges said of Henderson: “As media outlets continue to trim their news staffs and the survivors are expected to do more, Henderson demonstrates versatility and skill in his role as editor of the Rancho Santa Margarita Patch. His entry included excellent examples of news writing, video and photography, covering a wide variety of topics from sports and consumer reports to hard hitting political and court reporting, all optimized for delivery on the Web. His work serves as a model for the future of journalism on the Internet.”

Henderson was a sports writer with the Los Angeles Times for 18 years before joining Patch, which is owned by AOL. There are more than 900 online-only Patches nationwide. Each Patch consists of news tailored to and stemming from its community.

“I feel a little like I did in high school when I was named most likely to succeed,” Henderson said after receiving his award. “There’s this sense of acceptance that I’ve always tried to achieve.

“I feel like I represent the changing face of journalism and the way traditional reporters are reinventing themselves. We aren’t just masters of one craft or one subject area, we have to be masters of many. I’m not unique for doing this. Everyone on our team in Orange County and nationwide does the same thing, and we’re going to prove the Patch model can work.”

Finishing second and third to Henderson were Dylan Howard of CeleBuzz and Catherine Green of Neon Tommy, respectively.

Other journalists of the year were:

• Print over 50,000 circulation: Gene Maddaus, L.A. Weekly

• Print under 50,000 circulation: Ryan Vaillancourt, Los Angeles Downtown News

• Television: Robert Kovacik, NBC4

• Radio: Warren Olney, KCRW 89.9 FM

• Entertainment: Stephen Galloway, The Hollywood Reporter

• Photo: Rick Loomis, Los Angeles Times

Other major award winners included Sue Laris of the Los Angeles Downtown News for journalistic contributions to civic life, Carl Reiner for impact on media, and Sandra Rodriguez Nieto of sinembargo.mx for the Daniel Pearl Award for courage and integrity in journalism.

After some concern about whether a sports writer could handle the so-called “hard news” that takes place in a community, Henderson was hired and launched Rancho Santa Margarita Patch on Dec. 21, 2010, to coincide with the birth date of his main feature subject, Lisa Frost. The story was called “Ten Birthdays,” and was about her family and the 10 birthdays Orange County’s only 9/11 victim had missed since perishing in the second airplane crash into the World Trade Center. She was 22.

Since then, Henderson has chronicled a state championship-winning football team, a high school golfer who played in the U.S. Open, a tragic suicide in which a man jumped off a bridge in front of his mother, a heroic deputy dangling on the side of a bridge while holding a potential suicide victim with one arm, and the various other things that occur in his suburban community.

Last week Henderson also became the face of Lake Forest Patch.

At last year’s L.A. Press Club Awards, Henderson won first- and third-place for Online Sports News/Feature/Commentary for stories about Tesoro High’s upset of Servite in the section football playoffs, and a column on Santa Margarita Catholic football coach Harry Welch’s winning gamble in the State Bowl Championship.

He was up for Online News this year for his coverage of the closing arguments of the Richard Forsberg murder trial, but finished out of the money. First place instead went to the staff of The Hollywood Reporter for its look at the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo., and “Fatal Shooting at ‘The Dark Knight Rises.’ 

Second place went to Michael Martinez of CNN for “On the Border; Guns, Drugs and a Betrayal of Trust,” and third went to Lilly Fowler of FairWarning, “State Investigators, Workers Cite Labor Abuses in Warehouse Empire.”

“There was some fantastic reporting done in this category,” Henderson said. “Mine was the only deadline story that was a finalist, so I take some comfort in that. I spent eight hours in court, wrote a story and hit the submit button. I couldn’t make it any better."