Every year the L.A. Times throws a party for the newsroom staff and hands out some cash prizes. In past years, these were overflow banquets held at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Beverly Wilshire or some other fancy spot. The free dinner and open bar were inducements to get staffers and their spouses to actually attend. It's become harder to get together a festive crowd now that the soiree is held in a glorified conference room in the Times building and the staff is, shall we say, smaller and less party-minded. So for tonight's "editorial awards snack," as some wags call the downscaled event, editor Russ Stanton is trying a new tack: announce most of the awards ahead of time, but make staffers attend to see who wins the Editor's Prize and Special Citation. Stanton's memo to the staff, with most of the winners, after the jump:

From: Stanton, Russ
Sent: Wed 5/14/2008 12:37 PM
Subject: And the winners are ...

Please join me in congratulating the following colleagues for their outstanding work on behalf of our readers last year. Will will honor them, and several others, tonight in the 5th floor Salon beginning at 5 p.m.

There will be food and drink aplenty, please come and hoist a glass to celebrate the continued great work of our newsroom.

The winners of the 2007 Los Angeles Times Editorial Awards

Breaking News The California staff / The Photography staff
Beat Reporting Robyn Dixon
Investigations Sacramento Bureau
Explanatory Hollywood Strike Team
Opinion William Lobdell
News Photography Wally Skalij / Karen Tapia-Andersen
Feature Photography Robert Gauthier
News Design, Graphics Derek Simmons
Features Design, Graphics Leslie Carlson
Copy Editing Susan Worrell
Headline Writing Dave Bowman
Assignment Editing Linda Rogers
Support Staff News Operations
Best Writing Tom Curwen
Multimedia Jill Leovy
Sports Mike Bresnahan
Editor's Prize You have to show up tonight to find out:)
Special Citation See above
Publisher's Prize Andrew Malcolm / Don Frederick