Lawrence Ingrassia, managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, will receive the Society of American Business Editors and Writers’ highest honor, its Distinguished Achievement Award, for 2017. The award is given to an individual who has made a significant impact on the field of business journalism and who has served as a nurturing influence on others in the profession.
Ingrassia will accept the award Saturday, April 29, 2017, at the SABEW Best in Business Dinner and Awards Ceremony in Seattle during the annual spring conference. Early-bird registration for the conference is $349 (ends March 31), and tickets to the Best in Business event are $149.
“Larry has been one of the most impressive and well-respected people in business journalism for years,” said Joanna Ossinger of Bloomberg and SABEW’s Distinguished Achievement Award Selection Committee chairwoman. “We are proud to honor him and look forward to hearing his remarks during the Best in Business Awards Ceremony.”
With a career spanning more than 40 years, Ingrassia is one of the most accomplished business journalists in the country and has directed coverage that has won numerous Pulitzer Prizes, awards and other honors. He joined the Los Angeles Times in January 2015 as managing editor focusing on new ventures.
Prior to the LA Times, he worked at the New York Times, as business editor from 2004 to 2012 and later as deputy managing editor for new initiatives. Coverage he directed at the New York Times won five Pulitzer Prizes – one each for national reporting, international reporting and commentary and two in explanatory reporting – and his reporters won numerous other journalism prizes, including Polk and Loeb awards. In 2009, the judges of the Loeb Awards honored him with the Minard Editor Award for excellence in business and economic journalism for the New York Times’s coverage of the 2008 financial crisis, which was a Pulitzer finalist in the Public Service category.
He previously worked at the Wall Street Journal for 25 years, starting as a reporter in 1978 in the newspaper’s Chicago bureau, then working in various reporting and editing jobs in Minneapolis, London, Boston and New York, eventually becoming an assistant managing editor.
He began his career as a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, which he joined in 1974 after graduating with a journalism degree from the University of Illinois.
The SABEW Distinguished Achievement Award was established in 1993, when it was awarded to Hobart Rowan of The Washington Post. There have been 23 recipients since its inception.
SABEW is the world’s largest organization dedicated to business and financial journalism.
For more information, contact Kathleen Graham, SABEW executive director, at kgraham@sabew.org.