About
Investigative Journalist Michael Collins
Collins served six years as a Director of the Los Angeles Press Club from 2003 and for five years as its Judging Chair from 2004. He was termed off of the Board at the end of 2008 after three terms. Duffield and Collins were named Online Journalists of the Year for 2007 at the Los Angeles Press Club’s 50th Southern California Journalism Awards on June 21, 2008. It was the first time this prestigious category was awarded. Investigative Journalist Michael Collins Michael Collins also won First Place for News Feature (print under 100,000 circulation) for the Ventura County Reporter for its November 1, 2007 cover story “Dirty Business.”
Collins was the Journalist of the Year for 2006 (print under 100,000 circulation) for the Los Angeles Press Club for his work in Los Angeles CityBeat. Also in 2007, EnviroReporter.com’s Collins and Duffield won First Place for 2006 for Online News Story, Feature, Series or Package for its “Real Hot Property” series. That same year, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies awarded Collins Second Place in the Investigative Reporting category (circulation over 60,000) for the prestigious association’s 2007 Altweekly Awards.
On January 25, 2007, Supervisor John Flynn and the Ventura County Board of Supervisors presented Collins a Resolution that praised his work and called him “one of America’s greatest reporters,” and cited his collaboration with “website creator, webmaster and editorial collaborator, Denise Anne Duffield.”
Collins was the Press Club’s winner for 2002′s best Investigative/Series for papers under 100,000 circulation for his “Rocketdyne Ranch” expose in the Ventura County Reporter. This series was widely credited for leading to the creation of Ahmanson Ranch as public park land.
Duffield and Collins have also won numerous other awards for their investigative journalism, website, website design, and came in Second Place for “Designer of the Year” in 2007 for their work on EnviroReporter.com. Collins was 2004 runner-up for the Press Club’s Journalist of the Year (print under 100,000 circulation) for his Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat series entitled “Two Mile Island” which examined the pollution problems of Boeing’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory, formerly known as Rocketdyne.
Beginning in 1998 and since 2004 with Duffield, Collins has produced investigative environmental journalism that has helped stop over $6 billion worth of development on polluted land at Ahmanson Ranch in Ventura County and at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration. Coverage of toxins issues also helped lead to a $46 million cleanup of the former Aerojet facility in Chino Hills as well as a proposed $1 million exploration of the biomedical nuclear and chemical dump in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood. Collins’ work investigating and writing about the contamination problems at Boeing’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory helped contribute to the historic early 2008 clean up agreement between the company and the State of California. Duffield’s expert editorial and design contributions have greatly enhanced this work.
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For more about Michael Collins and Denise Anne Duffield click on the picture links below.
Blazing into our fifth year of in-depth investigations of the environment and the curious characters who inhabit it.
“Three Keys – Three Years”
EnviroReporter.com celebrates three years
“Ten Years After – Two Years On”
EnviroReporter.com celebrates two years
Denise Anne Duffield and Michael Collins are LA Press Club’s Online Journalists of the Year for 2007, awarded June 2008.
Ventura County Supervisor John Flynn honors Collins at LA Press Club blowout party.
EnviroReporter.com racks up the awards for its work.
Dean Kuipers chronicles Michael Collins’ investigation of Ahmanson Ranch.
Ahmanson Ranch Timeline – “How investigative reporting stopped a public health disaster,” says CityBeat‘s Dean Kuipers of Collins’ reporting.
Dr. Bennett Ramberg’s Los Angeles Daily Journal article crediting Collins with stopping Ahmanson Ranch development.
