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Winners announced in SABEW’s Best in Business Contest

Click here for a complete list of winners with judges’ comments.

 

Click here for a complete list of winners.


Click here to register for the 49th annual SABEW spring conference and the Best in Business Awards reception.

 

SABEW Staff Report

PHOENIX, Feb. 17, 2012 — The Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) has announced winners of its 17th Best in Business competition, which honors excellence in business and financial journalism across all news platforms.

Bloomberg News, Financial Times and GlobalPost each had nine wins; CNNMoney.com had eight honors and The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Markets magazine 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 14 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 and 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.

The New York Times, The Motley Fool, and FINS.com earned honors for coverage of MF Global’s implosion. Breaking news coverage of the August stock market plunge following the U.S. credit downgrade earned honors for The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, CNBC, CNNMoney.com and MarketWatch Radio.

Bloomberg Markets won honors for its series on trafficking in human organs, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek uncovered the billion-dollar industry of casinos in strip malls.

The Boston Globe weighed in with an investigation of restaurants using lower grade fish, a series that highlighted lax government oversight.  Among several awards, The Detroit News took honors for coverage of Borders’ demise and the resurgence of General Motors.

Several news outlets won for coverage of pension issues, including the Providence (R.I.) Journal and USA Today. Real estate issues dominated coverage, from blogs by Orange County Register, to a series on “flipping” by the Ft. Myers (Fla.) News Press. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune won for a piece on foreclosure fees, and the Miami Herald and American Banker also took honors for real estate coverage.

GlobalPost earned several awards, including coverage of changes in Myanmar (Burma) and how a major infrastructure project in China will relocate thousands of provincial residents.

Judges honored for columns such as Houston Chronicle’s Tech Blog and The Score, a sports business blog by the Indianapolis Business Journal. Street and Smith’s Sports Business Journal won multiple honors for a piece on the secondary ticket market for sporting events.

This year’s contest coordinators were Lisa Gibbs of Money magazine, Joanna Ossinger of Bloomberg and Chris Peacock of CNNMoney.com.

For more information on the contest, contact Warren Watson, SABEW executive director, at Watson@sabew.org or 602-496-5186.

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