Berkeleyside reporters Ally Markovich and Nico Savidge were honored by the San Francisco Press Club Wednesday night with three awards celebrating excellence in journalism. Markovich placed second in the feature and profile writing categories, while Savidge took third place in the news category.
Markovich, who primarily covers education and has a passion for data analysis and narrative storytelling, won for her feature story diving into 2020 census data, in which she used six interactive maps to explore how Berkeley changed over the previous decade and revealed — among many other findings — how South Berkeley’s Black population dropped by 1,600 residents and how a single block near the UC Berkeley campus gained more new residents than the entire Berkeley Hills.
Markovich also won for her profile of Yassir Chadly upon his retirement after 30 years teaching swimming in Berkeley pools — a story that demonstrates her deft hand for comic pacing and skill in turning what could have been a short yarn about an eccentric character into a tribute to the spiritual wisdom of a local legend and a portrait of the irreplaceable community he cultivated.
Savidge, Berkeleyside’s City Hall reporter, won for his news story explaining Berkeley’s strategy of buying and fixing up older buildings to boost the city’s affordable housing stock and sharing the personal story of a renter who benefited from an affordable housing acquisition, while taking a close look at the potential — and limitations — of the strategy.
“Ally and Nico’s reporting is always of the highest caliber, and I’m glad to see their work recognized,” said Berkeleyside Editor-in-Chief Pamela Turntine.
Markovich’s award-winning project, turning census data into a framework for understanding Berkeley, took six months of work. To analyze the data, Markovich learned R, a statistical programming language, spent hours biking Berkeley’s streets to verify what she was seeing on her laptop, and collaborated with Darrell Owens, a GIS programmer and pro-housing and transit advocate who first created the maps used in the story. She tried to boil down the narrative of an entire decade’s changes into a few thousand words. “I didn’t want to get it wrong, and I tried to be meticulous,” she said.
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She was similarly meticulous in her profile of Chadly, for which she used a decades-old Moroccan newspaper for research and woke up before dawn to watch him on his last day as a swimming instructor.
“I love getting to explore every nook and cranny of the city for Berkeleyside, whether it’s profiling Berkeley’s local legends or documenting a decade’s worth of change. I’m honored that these very different stories about Berkeley were recognized,” Markovich said.
Covering the polarizing and often bitter debates over housing in Berkeley can be challenging. Savidge’s award reflects his skill in explaining and simplifying complex policies and the value of measured, impartial and informed reporting.
“This story was an opportunity to explore one of the potential solutions to Berkeley’s affordable housing crisis. It means a lot to see it recognized,” Savidge said.
Earlier this year, Berkeleyside visual journalist Ximena Natera won an award for best photo essay from the Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California chapter for her coverage of the funeral of Berkeley High students Jazy and Angel Sotelo Garcia after they were killed in a tragic shooting.
Eli Wolfe, a reporter at Berkeleyside’s sister newsroom, The Oaklandside, won two awards from the San Francisco Press Club for his previous work at the San Jose Spotlight.
