Beth Hunt, director of editorial recruiting and development at American City Business Journals, was recognized by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers with the President’s Award, on April 28, 2017, during the annual SABEW17 conference in Seattle.
SABEW President Cory Schouten chose to honor Hunt, a former SABEW board member, for her years of service to the organization, including her role as co-chair in this year’s spring conference.
“Beth Hunt is a tireless advocate for business journalists and the SABEW programming designed to support and inspire them. Her service to SABEW has run the gamut from conference planner to contest volunteer to change agent. She’s served SABEW over the years much like she’s mentored fellow journalists — providing support, encouragement and sage advice,” Schouten said.
“SABEW is an important organization doing important work. Our members are doing the kind of journalism that drives business decisions, illuminates economic opportunity and protects everyone’s financial health. To be honored among them is humbling,” Hunt said.
At ACBJ, Hunt is charged with finding, recruiting and helping to acquire the best reporting and editing talent at all levels of the company’s 43 newsrooms.
She began her career as the tourism reporter at Orlando Business Journal in November 1989, covering Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and the region’s rapidly expanding hotel industry. She won numerous awards for an investigative series proving that the source of contaminated groundwater that was driving down real-estate values in downtown Orlando was coming from the two-block site owned and occupied by the Orlando Sentinel. Her coverage was instrumental in getting Tribune Co. to pay for the cleanup.
Over the next 15 years, Hunt served as news editor and managing editor in Orlando, and editor-in-chief of the business journals in Austin and Washington, D.C. She then made the move to Charlotte, North Carolina, as manager of editorial operations for ACBJ.
She was promoted to her current role in June 2016.
Hunt is also an adjunct professor at Wake Forest University, where she teaches news literacy, digital/interactive media, and introduction to news writing. She is a graduate of the University of Florida.
SABEW is the world’s largest organization dedicated to business and financial journalism.
