March 2026 Newsletter
Welcome to our March newsletter! It’s been another successful month for the foundation thanks to supporters like you. Let me know if you have any feedback by emailing [email protected].
CV Media Hall of Fame ceremony draws a crowd – and honors a surprise inductee
Aaron Perez Media Productions
In just three years, the Coachella Valley Media Hall of Fame induction ceremony has become a marquee event. In case you missed it, almost 300 people attended the luncheon at the Omni Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa in Rancho Mirage last month to recognize a new class of honorees, who were lauded for their achievements in shaping the valley’s media landscape. You can read about each of the inductees and view videos about their careers on the CVJF website: CVJF Hall of Fame | Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation.
CVJF founder Ricardo Loretta was a surprise inductee into the Hall of Fame. He was honored for his vision in creating the Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation in 2020 to rescue the opinion pages of The Desert Sun at a time when that forum for community engagement was in danger of being lost due to staff reductions.
Once again, we congratulate Ricardo and the other inductees! We also thank our supporters who joined us for the event and our keynote speaker, Tonya Mosley, co-host of NPR’s Fresh Air.
And the winners are …
Aaron Perez Media Productions
The Journalist of the Year and Rising Star Award winners were also announced at the Hall of Fame ceremony.
The Journalist of the Year award honors a professional who has demonstrated excellence in covering issues in the Coachella Valley in the past year. The Rising Star Award honors a local journalist under age 30 (or with less than 5 years in the industry) who produced notable journalism in the previous year.
Kevin Fitzgerald of the Coachella Valley Independent won the Journalist of the Year award for producing a number of compelling, in-depth stories on local issues. He has worked for the Independent since June 2013 as both a reporter and photographer covering news, culture, entertainment, and sports. Shay Lawson was named the Rising Star Award winner. She has worked with KESQ News Channel 3 since June 2024 and excels in breaking news coverage with calm yet urgent reporting.
CVJF awards first investigative reporting grant
Thanks to a successful year of fundraising, CVJF is launching a new initiative in 2026 to encourage local news organizations to tackle in-depth, investigative stories. The first grant, for $5,000, has been awarded to the Coachella Valley Independent and the Palm Springs Post, who are working collaboratively on an investigative story. We will alert our supporters when the watchdog report is published in the coming months. CVJF intends to award several more investigative reporting grants this year, so stay tuned for more announcements.
CV Giving Day campaign raises $5,000 for internships
The annual CV Giving Day campaign brought $5,180 in donations to CVJF -- money that will help us fund student internships in Valley newsrooms this summer. CVJF was also awarded a $1,000 bonus from the campaign organizers. Overall, the month-long event that ended March 3 raised more than $1 million for more than 150 local charities. CVJF’s fundraising total ranked 16th among the participating organizations. We thank the donors who contributed to our campaign.
Films by local journalists find a home at AmDocs Film Festival
American Documentary and Animation Film Festival
Local journalists are sharing in the spotlight of the 15th annual American Documentary and Animation Film Festival (more commonly known as AmDocs), which takes place March 25-29 at the Palm Springs Cultural Center.
NBC Palm Springs anchor Olivia Sandusky’s film, 80 Years Later: Coachella Valley’s WWII Legacy, interviews veterans of the war who live in the Valley, giving them an opportunity to recount their experiences in their own words.
Crystal Harrell, head feature writer for the Coachella Valley Weekly, and Kent Kay, who teaches film and digital image production at College of the Desert, are the creative forces behind Name Tag, a documentary short that explores a poet’s (Harrell) self-doubt and self-criticism.
Colleagues fondly recall former The Desert Sun editor Joan Behrmann
Joan Behrmann with CVJF board member Julie Makinen, both former executive directors of The Desert Sun in 2018
The Valley’s journalism community lost a giant earlier this month with the passing of Joan Behrmann, who was the first woman to serve as executive editor of The Desert Sun. She led the paper from 1987 to 1996. “She absolutely loved being the executive editor here,” Ed Manassah, a former colleague, told The Desert Sun. Behrmann came to the Valley after helping to launch USA TODAY, the flagship paper of the Gannett newspaper chain. Behrmann eventually left The Desert Sun for Detroit, but in retirement she returned to Palm Springs with her family in 2016. You can read the Desert Sun’s obituary here.
A celebration of Behrmann’s life will take place Sunday, March 29, at 4 p.m. in the Elrod Sculpture Garden at the Palm Springs Art Museum, 101 N. Museum Drive.
Palm Springs honors KESQ’s Karen Devine with a star on its Walk of Stars
KESQ-TV, News Channel 3
Karen Devine, the award-winning television journalist who was inducted into the Coachella Valley Media Hall of Fame in 2024, will receive a star on the Palm Springs Walk of the Stars. Devine, who has been a media figure in the Valley since 1992, will be honored at a public ceremony at 112 N. Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs on Friday, March 27, at 11 a.m.
“I am incredibly humbled to be honored in this way with a ‘Forever Star’ on the Palm Springs Walk of the Stars,” the KESQ anchor and investigative reporter said in a statement. “The Coachella Valley is not only where I work, it’s where I live and where I’ve raised my sons. This is home and the viewers are my extended family. I feel so lucky to have become a trusted source for local news and grateful to tell the stories that affect the Coachella Valley.”
You can read more about Devine’s award and her career here.
Thanks for all your support.
Randy Lovely, Board President Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation