I’m honored and thrilled to be named a 5-time finalist in the 67th Southern California Journalism Awards, presented by the Los Angeles Press Club. With more than 2,500 entries submitted—breaking all previous records—this year’s awards spotlight the most impactful storytelling across media.
My work has been recognized in four categories—spanning podcasting, TV, travel, and digital journalism—and reflects my continued passion for sharing powerful, meaningful stories of place, purpose, and people making a difference. From TV segments and podcast episodes to lifestyle features, each piece honors the culture, connections, and experiences that move us.
Lifestyle Feature (Podcast)“How Alex Jimenez Transformed Her Passion into a Thriving Travel Community”
On Make Your Own Map, Alex opens up about building Travel Fashion Girl and Women’s Travel Fest into vibrant communities for women travelers. Her entrepreneurial journey and empowering message earned recognition in this lifestyle storytelling category.
Lifestyle Feature (Podcast) & Travel Reporting (Podcast)“Neville McConachie’s Tales of the Giant’s Causeway”
This episode, also from Make Your Own Map, was recorded as part of my Jet Set TV travel special on Ireland—recently honored with a Telly Award. Neville’s storytelling brought the magic and mystery of Northern Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway to life and earned recognition in two categories.
TV/Streaming/Radio FeatureIcon of the Seas – The World’s Largest Cruise Ship
Featured on The Jet Set TV, this segment explored Royal Caribbean’s record-breaking ship. It’s a story of innovation, scale, and the joy of cruising—nominated in a category alongside some of the industry’s best travel broadcasters.
Online Journalist of the Year
I’m especially proud to once again be a finalist for Online Journalist of the Year, honoring the full spectrum of my digital reporting, interviews, and multimedia storytelling. This is my 3rd finalist nomination for Online Journalist of the Year!
I’m incredibly grateful to The Jet Set TV team, my podcast guests, and the editors and collaborators who help bring these stories to life. Thank you for traveling this journey with me—can’t wait to see what’s next!
5x Finalist! Travel, TV & Tales That Made the Judges Take Note
A6. ONLINE JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR, Independent/Freelance
Lisa Niver, Freelance
Nico Lang, Queer News Daily
Lyndsey Parker, Freelance
John Regardie, Freelance
Aitana Vargas, Freelance
B4. TRAVEL REPORTING
Lisa Niver, Make Your Own Map, “Neville McConachie’s Tales of the Giant’s Causeway”
Angela Boisvert, Matt Bass, Tamara Gould, Nathan Masters, Kathy Kasaba, PBS SoCal, “Lost LA: Hiking Trailblazers”
Ruksana Hussain, Fodor’s Travel, “How to Behave When Visiting Sites of Remembrance”
Michele Stueven, LA Weekly, “ON THE HORIZON 100 Years of Filmmaking in Utah”
Susan Valot, KCRW, “‘Just as special as Disneyland,’ backyard trains draw crowds”
Lisa Niver,Make Your Own Map, “How Alex Jimenez Transformed Her Passion into a Thriving Travel Community”
Lisa Niver, Make Your Own Map, “Ireland: Neville’s Stories at Giant’s Causeway”
Jonathan Bastian, Andrea Brody, KCRW, “The Serviceberry’: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s guide to the gift economy”
Caroline Feraday, KCLU Radio, “A master whiskey distiller from Scotland is putting Oxnard on the map”
Juuso Määttänen, Annenbergmedia, “Eli Everfly helps up-and-coming L.A. wrestlers get ahead”
How Alex Jimenez Transformed Her Passion into a Thriving Travel Community
Lisa Niver, The Jet Set TV, “Lisa Niver Onboard Icon of the Seas”
Samantha Bergeson, IndieWire, “Hallmark Holiday Stars Won’t Be Ignored by Hollywood Anymore: ‘I Treat Each Production Like a Martin Scorsese Film’”
Mesfin Fekadu, The Hollywood Reporter, “‘Abbott Elementary’ and The Glow Up of Janine Teagues”
James Hibberd, The Hollywood Reporter, “How ‘The Chosen’ Creator Turned the Bible Into Binge TV”
J. Kim Murphy, Variety, “Welcome to ‘Ren Faire’: Lance Oppenheim’s HBO Docuseries Follows a Festival Trapped in a Real-Life Game of Thrones”
The Jet Set TV: Lisa Niver takes us onboard the ICONIC Icon of the Seas
Jet Set Correspondent Lisa Niver set sail on the World’s Largest Cruise ship to give us a look inside!
Thank you The Jet Set TV, Nikki Noya & Bobby Laurie for allowing me to share about Royal Caribbean International’s brand new ship, ICON OF THE SEAS on your travel TV show.
Thank you to the INCREDIBLE & ICONIC production team — Option A Group, Lisa Williams, Sam Harris, Jason Mangini and Patrick Gruss for this amazing segment.
Thank you to TEAM Ketchum –Aaron Kokoruz Jessica Milton Spencer Bullard Amanda Gadaleta Alonso–for another amazing adventure, especially saving me a spot on Crown’s Edge 🙂
Lisa Niver won a 2025 Telly Award for her Travel TV special about Ireland which aired on The Jet Set TV!
https://youtu.be/h1rIvYuti6U
Lisa Niver has won many awards including a TELLY! From 2017 to 2025, in the Southern California Journalism Awards and National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards, she has won nine times and been a finalist forty times for a variety of broadcast, print, podcast and digital categories.
2025 Winner: Silver Telly Award for Celtic Charm travel special!
2025 5x Finalist: Southern California Journalism Awards for Online Journalist of the Year, TV/Streaming/Radio Feature, Lifestyle Feature (Podcast) & Travel Reporting (Podcast)
2024 Winner: National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards Diversity in the Entertainment Industry
2024 4x Finalist: National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards finalist for Online Journalist of the Year, and for three of my podcast interviews with Beth Santos, Wanderful, Carolyn Ray, JourneyWoman, and Samantha Brown, Places to Love.
2024 6x Finalist: Southern California Journalism Awards for Online Journalist of the Year, Podcast Host and for my podcast interviews with Andrew McCarthy, Samantha Brown, Tony Phelan and Christie Tate
2023 Winner: National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards Diversity in Entertainment
2023 3x Finalist: National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards
2023 2x Finalist: Southern California Journalism Awards for Travel Reporting and Podcast Interview
Have you read my memoir, BRAVE-ish? My book has won 10 awards!
2025 International Impact Book Awards—Travel
2024 Gold Medal – Inspirational – North American Book Awards
2024 Gold Bookfest Award – Nonfiction Memoir Travel
2024 Gold Nonfiction Book Award – Nonfiction Authors Association
2024 Literary Titan Gold Book Award – Non-fiction
2024 Silver Bookfest Award – Nonfiction Self-Help Inspiration
2024 Readers’ Favorite Honorable Mention – Non-Fiction – Women’s Genre
2023 Hearten Book Awards First Place Winner – Inspiring & Uplifting Non-Fiction
2023 Zibby Awards Runner-up – Best Book for The Strong Woman2023 Goody Business Book Awards Winner – Memoir/Self-Help
Featured in Conde Nast Traveler Women Who Travel Book Club: 10 New Books We Can’t Wait to Read this FallAs seen in Forbes Best New NonFiction
Lester brings the reader into the communications operation during the war: the videos, arguments, mistakes, debates over what to post and the race to respond to events moving faster than any communications office could control.
Among the speakers, Adam Milstein, a real estate investor, philanthropist and co-founder of the fast-growing Impact Forum, urged attendees to frame antisemitism as an American issue and not just a Jewish issue.
The Beverly Hills menu features some of Malka’s best-known dishes, including the Queen Malka Schnitzel, Branzino Hraime, onglet served with roasted white peaches and Israeli-style hummus.
Like the greatest satirists, such as Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain, they chose comedy over accusation to mock the folly of society and add levity to dark times. But their aim was not levity alone.
Sometimes love arrives ahead of you, in spite of you. Cooking slowly became a way of being there for the people I love. A wordless language that says: I see you. I hear you. You’re worth the onion-chopping.
If an experienced professional with rare expertise leaves Israel, the impact cannot be understood simply by adding another person to a brain-drain statistic. The more relevant question is how many people with comparable experience remain, how essential that expertise is and how easily it can be rebuilt.
Conspiracy theories and antisemitism do have an affinity and important features in common, including the tendency to frame accusations in such a way that refutation does not affect the accuser. Having suffered from this for centuries, do we really want it in our public life?
Any Democrat seeking to lead the party in 2028 should embrace the politics of addition by subtraction and reject any movement seeking to end all aid to Israel and replace America’s constitutional order.
We live in an age with zero patience for uncertainty. We have answers for everything, almost magically. And somehow, we still seem to know nothing about what it means to be here.
TV, Podcasts & Passion Projects: I’m a 5-Time Finalist!
Lisa Ellen Niver
Southern California Journalism Awards 2025: 5 Finalist Nominations. 4 Categories. 1 Storytelling Heart.
I’m honored and thrilled to be named a 5-time finalist in the 67th Southern California Journalism Awards, presented by the Los Angeles Press Club. With more than 2,500 entries submitted—breaking all previous records—this year’s awards spotlight the most impactful storytelling across media. My work has been recognized in four categories—spanning podcasting, TV, travel, and digital journalism—and reflects my continued passion for sharing powerful, meaningful stories of place, purpose, and people making a difference. From TV segments and podcast episodes to lifestyle features, each piece honors the culture, connections, and experiences that move us. Lifestyle Feature (Podcast) “How Alex Jimenez Transformed Her Passion into a Thriving Travel Community” On Make Your Own Map, Alex opens up about building Travel Fashion Girl and Women’s Travel Fest into vibrant communities for women travelers. Her entrepreneurial journey and empowering message earned recognition in this lifestyle storytelling category. Lifestyle Feature (Podcast) & Travel Reporting (Podcast) “Neville McConachie’s Tales of the Giant’s Causeway” This episode, also from Make Your Own Map, was recorded as part of my Jet Set TV travel special on Ireland—recently honored with a Telly Award. Neville’s storytelling brought the magic and mystery of Northern Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway to life and earned recognition in two categories. TV/Streaming/Radio Feature Icon of the Seas – The World’s Largest Cruise Ship Featured on The Jet Set TV, this segment explored Royal Caribbean’s record-breaking ship. It’s a story of innovation, scale, and the joy of cruising—nominated in a category alongside some of the industry’s best travel broadcasters. Online Journalist of the Year I’m especially proud to once again be a finalist for Online Journalist of the Year, honoring the full spectrum of my digital reporting, interviews, and multimedia storytelling. This is my 3rd finalist nomination for Online Journalist of the Year! I’m incredibly grateful to The Jet Set TV team, my podcast guests, and the editors and collaborators who help bring these stories to life. Thank you for traveling this journey with me—can’t wait to see what’s next!5x Finalist! Travel, TV & Tales That Made the Judges Take Note
A6. ONLINE JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR, Independent/Freelance
Lisa Niver, Freelance Nico Lang, Queer News Daily Lyndsey Parker, Freelance John Regardie, Freelance Aitana Vargas, FreelanceB4. TRAVEL REPORTING
Lisa Niver, Make Your Own Map, “Neville McConachie’s Tales of the Giant’s Causeway” Angela Boisvert, Matt Bass, Tamara Gould, Nathan Masters, Kathy Kasaba, PBS SoCal, “Lost LA: Hiking Trailblazers” Ruksana Hussain, Fodor’s Travel, “How to Behave When Visiting Sites of Remembrance” Michele Stueven, LA Weekly, “ON THE HORIZON 100 Years of Filmmaking in Utah” Susan Valot, KCRW, “‘Just as special as Disneyland,’ backyard trains draw crowds”K4. LIFESTYLE FEATURE
Lisa Niver, Make Your Own Map, “How Alex Jimenez Transformed Her Passion into a Thriving Travel Community” Lisa Niver, Make Your Own Map, “Ireland: Neville’s Stories at Giant’s Causeway” Jonathan Bastian, Andrea Brody, KCRW, “The Serviceberry’: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s guide to the gift economy” Caroline Feraday, KCLU Radio, “A master whiskey distiller from Scotland is putting Oxnard on the map” Juuso Määttänen, Annenbergmedia, “Eli Everfly helps up-and-coming L.A. wrestlers get ahead”L21. TV/STREAMING/RADIO FEATURE
Lisa Niver, The Jet Set TV, “Lisa Niver Onboard Icon of the Seas” Samantha Bergeson, IndieWire, “Hallmark Holiday Stars Won’t Be Ignored by Hollywood Anymore: ‘I Treat Each Production Like a Martin Scorsese Film’” Mesfin Fekadu, The Hollywood Reporter, “‘Abbott Elementary’ and The Glow Up of Janine Teagues” James Hibberd, The Hollywood Reporter, “How ‘The Chosen’ Creator Turned the Bible Into Binge TV” J. Kim Murphy, Variety, “Welcome to ‘Ren Faire’: Lance Oppenheim’s HBO Docuseries Follows a Festival Trapped in a Real-Life Game of Thrones” The Jet Set TV: Lisa Niver takes us onboard the ICONIC Icon of the SeasLisa Niver won a 2025 Telly Award for her Travel TV special about Ireland which aired on The Jet Set TV!
- 2019 Winner: NAEJ Award for KTLA TV segment
- 2019 Finalist: National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards in three categories
- Category H2a. Soft News: Ms. Magazine: Polar Bears Can’t Vote So You Have To
- Category F6a. Soft News Feature – Under 5 Minutes—Film/TV: KTLA TV Oscars Countdown to Gold with Lisa Niver
- Category C1b. Business, Music/Tech/Art: My Wharton Magazine article: Four Female Founders Share Their Origin Stories
- 2019 Finalist: Southern California Journalism Awards for Broadcast Television Lifestyle Segment: Ogden Ski Getaway
- 2018 Finalist for three categories of Southern California Journalism Awards:
- SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY REPORTING: Smithsonian
- TRAVEL REPORTING: Popsugar Fitness
- PERSONALITY PROFILE: Saturday Evening Post
- 2017 2nd place winner for Southern California Journalism Award Print Column “A journey to freedom over three Passovers” and finalist for Travel Reporting.
More about Lisa Niver: https://lisaniver.com/awards/Have you read my memoir, BRAVE-ish? My book has won 10 awards!
2025 International Impact Book Awards—Travel 2024 Gold Medal – Inspirational – North American Book Awards 2024 Gold Bookfest Award – Nonfiction Memoir Travel 2024 Gold Nonfiction Book Award – Nonfiction Authors Association 2024 Literary Titan Gold Book Award – Non-fiction 2024 Silver Bookfest Award – Nonfiction Self-Help Inspiration 2024 Readers’ Favorite Honorable Mention – Non-Fiction – Women’s Genre 2023 Hearten Book Awards First Place Winner – Inspiring & Uplifting Non-Fiction 2023 Zibby Awards Runner-up – Best Book for The Strong Woman2023 Goody Business Book Awards Winner – Memoir/Self-Help Featured in Conde Nast Traveler Women Who Travel Book Club: 10 New Books We Can’t Wait to Read this Fall As seen in Forbes Best New NonFictionDid you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.
Editor's Picks
Israel and the Internet Wars – A Professional Social Media Review
The Invisible Student: A Tale of Homelessness at UCLA and USC
What Ever Happened to the LA Times?
Who Are the Jews On Joe Biden’s Cabinet?
You’re Not a Bad Jewish Mom If Your Kid Wants Santa Claus to Come to Your House
No Labels: The Group Fighting for the Political Center
Latest Articles
Steve Ballmer and the Ecstasy of Hubris
Repair the World and Hillel International Engaging 800+ College Students in 9/11 Volunteer Program
Jim Joseph Foundation Releases Unprecedented Research on Jewish Young Adults
‘The Bridge’ Between Rock Music and Healing
Know Before Whom You Stand — A poem for Parsha Nitzavim-Vayeilech
A Statement About Donald Trump’s Apocrypha
A Moment in Time: Rosh HaShanah – We Ascend
A Bisl Torah — All Over Again
Repenting includes examining and admitting our mistakes. Seeking forgiveness. Determining to do better. Being better. Every single day.
Print Issue: AKLA Rises | September 4, 2026
A local teen initiative to build Jewish pride expands to other cities and shows the enduring power of curiosity and Jewish identity.
New Book, ‘Digital Warrior,’ Goes Inside Israel’s Message War
Lester brings the reader into the communications operation during the war: the videos, arguments, mistakes, debates over what to post and the race to respond to events moving faster than any communications office could control.
Love, Drugs and Prison: The True Story Behind ‘10 Kilos’
Hanging Out at the Jewish American Summit
Among the speakers, Adam Milstein, a real estate investor, philanthropist and co-founder of the fast-growing Impact Forum, urged attendees to frame antisemitism as an American issue and not just a Jewish issue.
Eyal Shani’s Recipe for Kosher Cuisine: Wild, Bold and Full of Life
The Beverly Hills menu features some of Malka’s best-known dishes, including the Queen Malka Schnitzel, Branzino Hraime, onglet served with roasted white peaches and Israeli-style hummus.
A Festive French Roast
One of my favorite things to cook for the Jewish holidays is a beautiful French roast. It’s so very festive and is perfect to feed a hungry crowd.
Table for Five: Nitzavim-Vayelech
Hidden and Revealed
The Genius of the Marx Brothers
Like the greatest satirists, such as Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain, they chose comedy over accusation to mock the folly of society and add levity to dark times. But their aim was not levity alone.
AKLA Rises
From a Local Experiment to a National Program: AKLA Expands Its Vision for Jewish Teens
Rosner’s Domain | What Do You ‘Know’ About Altalena?
The Altalena was a munitions ship fired upon and sunk by the newly formed Israel Defense Forces in 1948.
“The Star on the Grave”
Better Kisser Than a Cook
Sometimes love arrives ahead of you, in spite of you. Cooking slowly became a way of being there for the people I love. A wordless language that says: I see you. I hear you. You’re worth the onion-chopping.
Israel’s Brain-Drain Debate Is Asking the Wrong Question
If an experienced professional with rare expertise leaves Israel, the impact cannot be understood simply by adding another person to a brain-drain statistic. The more relevant question is how many people with comparable experience remain, how essential that expertise is and how easily it can be rebuilt.
Conspiracy Theories Have Never Been Good for the Jews; They Won’t Be Good for Israel
Conspiracy theories and antisemitism do have an affinity and important features in common, including the tendency to frame accusations in such a way that refutation does not affect the accuser. Having suffered from this for centuries, do we really want it in our public life?
I Am an American, a Jew, and a Progressive Democrat. Can I Still Be All Three?
Any Democrat seeking to lead the party in 2028 should embrace the politics of addition by subtraction and reject any movement seeking to end all aid to Israel and replace America’s constitutional order.
Apprenticeship in Mystery: Working the Infinite into the Ordinary
We live in an age with zero patience for uncertainty. We have answers for everything, almost magically. And somehow, we still seem to know nothing about what it means to be here.
Deuteronomy’s Directions for America
Moses’ speech was addressed to people standing on the threshold of a new chapter. The American story is similarly turning a new page.
A New Borscht Belt?
If renewed exclusion teaches us only to become more protective of Jewish work, we will have learned the wrong lesson from the original Borscht Belt.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.