In recognition of the best from among all the “feature” writing categories, ASBPE will present the first Stephen Barr Award at its 2004 Awards of Excellence banquet in Philadelphia next year.
The award is being created in memory of Stephen Barr, a perennial ASBPE award-winner for his work as senior contributing editor of CFO magazine. Barr, of Metuchen, N.J., died of kidney cancer last year. He was 43.
The award, which will be endowed by Stephen’s family and administered by the Society, will be the first ASBPE prize designed to recognize “best in class” journalism from among all Editorial Excellence winners in certain writing categories. Judges will review ASBPE’s Gold award honorees in categories including, but not limited to, Feature Article, Individual Profile, and Feature Series.
The Barr Award winner will be the writer whose work most reflects the qualities Barr exemplified: inventiveness of approach, and especially the use of narrative style; insightfulness and balance in the presentation of a complex subject; depth of investigation; and impact among the community of readers.
In a remarkable string of award-winning in ASBPE’s competition, stories by Barr were honored with national or East regional awards in 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, and 2002. Last year, his incisive and sensitive article, “Shadow of a Doubt,” about a corporate whistle-blower who was also manic-depressive, won ASBPE’s national Gold award for best individual profile.