County honors Signal for series
The Signal’s news team was honored Tuesday morning by Los Angeles County officials for its work in examining the local impacts of the national opioid crisis.
Signal Publisher Richard Budman, joined by Chief Multimedia Journalist Austin Dave and Action Family Counseling CEO Cary Quashen, accepted embossed scrolls from 5th District County Supervisor Kathryn Barger during the Board of Supervisors meeting.
Barger highlighted the team’s efforts to produce “Addicted,” a micro-documentary online video series tasked with shining a spotlight on the Santa Clarita Valley’s increasing number of fatal overdoses and proactive efforts made by local law enforcement and medical crews.
“We’re very proud of Austin and the work he did in leading this project. We also appreciate the recognition from Supervisor Kathryn Barger on the ‘Addicted’ series,” Budman said, “and the county’s proactive efforts to battle opioid addiction, which is one of the most serious crises facing our nation. By sharing these stories in The Signal and on SignalSCV.com, we hope to raise awareness of the scope of this problem locally and have a positive impact in the community.”
The series began in April 2017 as Santa Clarita faced a rash of fatal overdose cases. By year’s end, six people had died as a result of drug overdose. The number of deaths related to drug abuse this year have nearly doubled compared to 2017.
“I’m very thankful Supervisor Barger and her peers on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors chose to honor our reporting and have taken part in giving their testimony in terms of how the nation’s most populous county is responding to a rash of deadly overdoses,” Dave said.
The first eight episodes of the “Addicted” video series are available for viewing on-demand on The Signal’s Vault Project website, https://vault. signalscv.com/Addicted.