Honors

Washington Post staff writer Phuong Ly has won the American Society of Newspaper Editors' 2006 award for writing on diversity.

ASNE also named Post staff writer Mark Leibovich a finalist for its non-deadline writing award.

Ly won the Freedom Forum/ASNE Award for Outstanding Writing on Diversity for a variety of stories that chronicled facets of the immigrant experience in the Washington region.

In "A Wrenching Choice," Ly examined the results of a Korean couple's decision to educate their three children in the United States, even at the cost of long-term separations from their father. In another article, she told of three Vietnamese women whose lives here were shaped by their wartime experiences 30 years earlier.

In a piece for The Washington Post Magazine, Ly portrayed the experiences of immigrant second-graders in Silver Spring as they put on an opera. Ly's work will appear in "Best Newspaper Writing 2006," a book published by the Poynter Institute of St. Petersburg, Fla.

The winners of this year's ASNE awards were posted last week on the organization's Web site.

ASNE recognized Leibovich's political writing for the Style section, including profiles of several senators and Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff. Jim Sheeler of the Rocky Mountain News won the non-deadline writing award.

Other ASNE winners were: Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times for commentary; Todd Heisler of the Rocky Mountain News for community service photojournalism; Mike Trimble of the Denton (Tex.) Record-Chronicle for editorial writing; John Simerman of the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.) for deadline news reporting; the Los Angeles Times for deadline reporting by a team; and the Cleveland Plain Dealer for watchdog reporting.

The awards will be presented at a ceremony April 27 in Seattle.