Tag Archives: Awards
Reuters names internal winners
by Chris Roush
Ben Lim, a Reuters reporter in China, won the company’s award as reporter of the year last week.
Lim produced a string of major scoops, ranging from China’s plans to bail out local governments to its plans to build two new aircraft carriers. In November, Ben reported that China’s top leaders, miffed at the EU’s unwillingness to offer concessions to China, were leaning away from providing direct aid to help with the euro zone crisis.
A series of stories on shell companies led by Brian Grow was named the enterprise story of the year. Reuters investigations traced the myriad ways that U.S. laws enable corporations, international and domestic, to operate secretly within the country — sometimes protecting themselves from exposure, sometimes insulating themselves from alleged wrongdoing, sometimes perpetrating scams that have bilked millions from U.S. taxpayers.
Reuters editor Mark Bendeich won the editor of the year award. He exhibited exceptional leadership in driving coverage of the $1.7 billion accounting fraud at Olympus Corp, a story that ranks as one of Japan’s worst corporate scandals.
Under Bendeich’s leadership, Reuters revealed the key transactions, personalities and conflicts of interest that lay hidden behind a thick cloak of denial and accounting trickery at Olympus, and clearly analyzed how and why such a once-proud blue chip firm resorted to cooking the books for two decades. In addition, Reuters gave readers deep insights into wider implications of the scandal, such as the questions and challenges it posed for Japan’s corporate governance, its corporate culture, for the global auditing industry and for investor confidence in the wider Japanese market.
See all of the winners here.
Wired, Kiplinger finalists for Ellies
by Chris Roush
Wired magazine and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance are the only two business and personal finance magazines who are finalists for the 2012 National Magazine Awards for Digital Media.
Known as the Digital Ellies — for the Alexander Calder stabile “Elephant,” which is given to each winner — the awards will be presented on March 20 in New York City.
Wired is a finalist in the digital design category for its iPad application for its February 2011 issue. It is also a finalist in the digital media reporting category for “FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical.’”
Kiplinger is a finalist in the digital media personal service category for its state-by-state guide to taxes on retirees.
In addition, the tech site CNET.com is a finalist in the digital media commentary category for “Molly Rants” by Molly Wood.
See all of the finalists here.
Stewart to receive Kilgore award
by Chris Roush
James Stewart, the Pulitzer Prize winning business columnist for the New York Times, will be presented with DePauw University’s Bernard C. Kilgore Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in Journalism.
Past winners of the award, named after the man who oversaw The Wall Street Journal‘s post-World War II growth until his death in 1967, include Bob Bartley, the former editorial page editor of The Journal.
The author of the “Common Sense” column for the Business Day section of the Times, Stewart won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1988 for his articles in The Journal about the 1987 dramatic upheaval in the stock market and insider trading.
Stewart was named page one editor of the Journalin 1988 but left the paper four years later to found SmartMoneymagazine.
He is the author of 11 books including “Den of Thieves”; “DisneyWar: The Battle for the Magic Kingdom”; “Heart of a Soldier: A Story of Love, Heroism, and September 11th”; and “Tangled Webs: How False Statements are Undermining America from Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff.”
Stewart, who traces his career back to a term as editor of The DePauw, has been honored with the Edgar Award, the George Polk Award, the Elliott V. Bell Award and Gerald Loeb awards in 1987, 1988 and 2006. He has been called by the San Francisco Examiner “the journalist every journalist would like to be.”
Stewart is Bloomberg Professor of Business and Economic Journalism at Columbia University and is a member and past chair of DePauw’s Board of Trustees.
Read more here.
Real estate reporting contest open for entries
by Chris Roush
The National Association of Real Estate Editors’ 62nd Annual Real Estate Journalism Competition is magnifying its focus on commercial real estate and finance beats.
Nineteen of NAREE’s 25 categories and NAREE’s three overall awards are open to journalists covering commercial real estate and finance. Deadline to enter NAREE’s Competition is March 1, 2012, for work published or aired in 2011.
First- and second-place winners will be recognized in categories including: “Best Commercial Real Estate Report in a Daily Newspaper,” “Best Real Estate Report in a Weekly Business Newspaper,” “Best Trade Magazine Report – Commercial,” “Best Commercial Report Online or Broadcast,” “Best Blog,” “Best Column,” “Best Team Report,” “Best Investigative Report,” “Best Commercial Real Estate Magazine,” “Best Web Site,” and more.
The President’s Award of $1,000 will go to the Best Overall Individual Entry. Winner of the Best Freelance Collection will receive $500. The Ruth Ryon Best Entry by a Young Journalist (under age 30) and 25 individual category winners will be awarded $250 each.
“NAREE’s journalism competition attracts a large number of entries from commercial real estate writers and business editors at major news outlets as well as freelancers covering commercial real estate along with residential,” said NAREE Executive Director Mary Doyle-Kimball. “Half of NAREE’s Board of Directors works in either commercial or financial real estate news. Both NAREE’s Annual Journalism Competition and the 46th Annual Spring Conference have broadened their focus in these areas.” NAREE’s competition also continues to have categories aimed at media covering residential real estate including foreclosures, mortgages, and consumer issues, as well as architecture and home building.
Individual and team honors have recently recognized coverage on topics from the financial meltdown, mortgage fraud, the commercial real estate crisis, and sour investments to sustainable urban design, new construction analysis, governmental policy, redevelopment of older properties, multi-family development, affordable housing and green remodeling.
Read more here.
Biz journalists win Polk Awards
by Chris Roush
The winners of the 63rd annual George Polk Awards in Journalism were announced Monday by Long Island University, and at least two of the categories had business journalists as the winners.
The George Polk Award for National Reporting will go to the staff of The Wall Street Journal for a series of articles that examined and dissected new ways of insider trading involving Washington officials and well-connected investors. The Journal’s investigations, undertaken by almost a dozen reporters, showed how savvy investors gained an advantage by getting early clues to the Federal Reserve’s forthcoming policy moves.
This revelation prompted the Federal Reserve for the first time to publicly release the communications it has with banks before its monetary-policy meetings. The series also revealed how hedge fund managers get an early clue to important legislation from lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and helped trigger proposed laws to curb improper stock investing by legislators and their aides.
Three reporters at Bloomberg News will receive the George Polk Award for International Reporting for a series of articles that shed light on the practice of Western companies selling surveillance technologies to repressive regimes that use them to track, imprison and kill dissidents. The muckraking efforts of Ben Elgin, Alan Katz and Vernon Silver demonstrated — and helped halt — the complicity of Western companies in these abuses. Their stories showed how phone transcripts generated by German computers led to the arrest, interrogation and torture of Bahraini human rights activist Abdul Ghani Al Khanjar.
The series also exposed an ongoing mass-surveillance project by the Syrian government amidst the slaughter of civilians. The European Union banned the surveillance, and lives were saved as a direct result of the reporting. To get at the story, the Bloomberg News reporters spent 10 months inside the secretive world of computer programmers and former spies who sell and maintain the sophisticated surveillance tools that help totalitarian regimes quash opposition.
See all of the winners here.
SABEW names 2011 Best in Business winners
by Chris Roush
The Society of American Business Editors and Writers announced winners of its 17thBest in Business competition, which honors excellence in business and financial journalism across all news platforms.
Bloomberg News and the Global Post each had nine wins; the Financial Times had eight honors, and The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Markets magazine and CNNMoney.com each took seven.
Overall there were more than 200 winners across 89 categories. There was a record-setting 1,030 entries this year, an increase of 11 percent over the previous year.
“Business and economic news again produced some of the biggest — and most competitive — stories in 2011,” said Kevin Noblet, SABEW president and a managing editor at Dow Jones Newswires. “Our Best in Business awards judges found extraordinary coverage of breaking news, dogged investigative efforts, great beat and column writing and fine explanatory journalism.”
“SABEW has structured our prizes not just to reflect the new ways stories are getting delivered over the Internet and in different media, and but to make sure local journalism gets honored along with the big national news outlets.”
The awards will be presented Saturday, March 17, at the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indianapolis. SABEW’s 49th annual conference runs March 15-17 and features White House consumer advocate Richard Cordray, Ford marketing chief Jim Farley, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, with welcoming remarks by Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay.
More than 200 working journalists and academics served as judges. A complete winners list is available at sabew.org.
In a sampling of winners, an Associated Press feature on the lawyer representing victims of financier Bernie Madoff swayed judges, as did Madoff features in the Financial Times and New York Magazine. Bloomberg News won for its multimedia package on children picking cotton in Burkina Faso, and for news of George Soros returning investor funds.
Read more here.
SABEW contest attracts record entries
by Chris Roush
A record number of entries were submitted this year in the 17th annual Best in Business competition conducted by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
A total of 1,030 entries will be considered for awards, bettering last year’s record entry total of 904. Some 796 entries were submitted two years ago.
“We’re very gratified by this year’s unprecedented level of interest,” said SABEW’s president, Kevin Noblet, a managing editor at Dow Jones Newswires. “It clearly reflects the growing importance of financial and economic news, both to the public and inside the organizations that produce it.”
“We reshaped our contest a year ago to make the categories better fit with how news is now delivered, and we added new, separate categories for personal finance, real estate and international coverage. I think all that has had a positive impact,” Noblet added. “We’re seeing organizations entering the competition that never did before, and we’re seeing longtime participants submitting more entries.”
Teams of judges are now considering the work submitted by business journalists in print, digital, and radio and television categories.
Winners will be announced later in February, with the awards presented Saturday, March 17, at SABEW’s 49th annual spring conference in Indianapolis. The conference will be at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.
Read more here.
Loeb Awards extend deadline to enter
by Chris Roush
UCLA Anderson School of Management and the G. and R. Loeb Foundation have extended the deadline to submit entries for the 2012 Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism to Tuesday, Feb. 7.
Submissions and nominations for the competition categories and career achievement awards are accepted online only at www.loeb.anderson.ucla.edu.
The Gerald Loeb Awards are the most prestigious honor in business journalism, recognizing writers, editors and producers who make significant contributions to the understanding of business, finance and the economy for both the private investor and the general public.
Entries are being accepted in 13 categories: Large Newspapers, Medium & Small Newspapers, Magazines, Commentary, Breaking News, Beat Reporting, News Services, Explanatory, Online Enterprise, Blogging, Personal Finance, Television Enterprise and Business Book.
Consideration is limited to entries that were published or broadcast in the United States during calendar year 2011.
Read more here.
Financial journalism award deadline extended
by Chris Roush
The New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants has extended the deadline to apply for its annual Excellence in Financial Journalism Award to Feb. 10.
The award recognizes reporters from the national and local press who contribute to a better understanding of business topics. The society presents awards in the categories at a special awards luncheon in May.
A panel of members from the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants and the New York Financial Writers Association judges entries on accuracy and thoroughness of research, the ability to communicate an understanding of the topic, and fair and balanced representation of the issue(s).
Last year’s winners included Daniel Golden, John Hechlinger and John Lauerman of Bloomberg News for “Education Inc.,” an expose of taxpayer-funded expansion of for-profit schools through aggressive marketing leaving low-income students, veterans and the homeless burdened with lifelong debt.
To apply, see the application information here.
Bloomberg.com, Indianapolis Biz Journal among Eppy winners
by Chris Roush
Bloomberg.com and the Indianapolis Business Journal received Eppys, awards given by Editor & Publisher for the best media-affiliated websites.
Bloomberg.com won for best business/finance website with more than 1 million unique visitors per month, while the Indianapolis Business Journal won for best business/finance website with less than 250,000 unique visitors per month.
VegasInc.com, a site produced by Greenspun Media Group that follows Las Vegas business, won for best business/finance website with between 250,000 and 1 million unique visitors per month.
The best business blog with more than 1 million unique visitors per month was Economy Lab from the Toronto Globe and Mail.
The best business blog with less than 250,000 unique visitors per month was Investor Uprising.
See all of the winners here.
