We're thrilled to share that Oakland Local has won a 2011 Society of Professional Journalists Northern California award for multimedia arts & culture coverage of the city’s hip-hop scene. Contributors named in the award are: Eric Arnold, Stephan Allen, Susan Mernit and Kwan Booth; Michelle Fitzhugh-Craig was the editor for all these stories.

The 2011 winners will be honored at SPJ-NorCal’s 26th annual awards dinner on November 15 at Jillian’s restaurant in San Francisco--it's a strong group, and we're thrilled to be a part of it.

For examples of our coverage see these stories:

Turf Dancing Makes Comeback in Oakland Where It All Started  http://bit.ly/cWqwsh

 Oakland art gallery presents world-class graffiti art show, workshops, more (Preview)  http://bit.ly/hrnSj5

AeroSoul 2 exhibit redefines graffiti as artform, culture (Review)  http://bit.ly/dWMP5l

Turfing Dance Battle in Oakland's Jack London Square: "It was the best party ever" http://bit.ly/bBfhua

The full awards list is here: Society of Professional Journalists — Northern California · SPJ Honors 2011 Excellence in Journalism Award Winners http://bit.ly/mZv79z

This is the second SPJ award Oakland Local has received, the first was for our Toxic Tour coverage in 2009.

Speaking of which, we've gotten some great community support for publishing news:

CB Smith-Dahl's Toxic Tour 2 series on Spot.us has raised XXX, and needs to raise just XX more to be funded for additional coverage of West Oakland's water issues.  To contribute to that story, click here.  To find out more about a cool Oct 30 chili party, report back and fundraiser, click here.

Susie Cagle is reporting on Occupy Oakland--with her sketchpad and drawings.  To hel support her project, donate as little as $4.50 in survey funds here: http://spot.us/pitches/1084-an-illustrated-history-of-occupy-oakland

And if you want to support ongoing news coverage at OL, please do what 75 of your peers have done and make a donation to us via Razoo--it's tax-deductible and the money goes straight to local editors and writers:  http://bit.ly/dPU5NZ