Computerworld and CSO, two publications of International Data Group (IDG)in Framingham, Mass., took honors as the Magazines of the Year in the 28th Annual Azbee Awards of Excellence presented July by ASBPE.
The group’s 2006 Stephen Barr Award for feature writing went to Shabnam Mogharabi, a Los Angeles-based business editor, for a series of articles in Aquatics International explaining why American minority youths account for a disproportionate percentage of drowning deaths.
Stan Modic, senior editorial advisor and columnist at Nelson Publishing, accepted the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award at ASBPE’s ceremony, held in Chicago Thursday night, July 20, as part of the organization’s National Editorial Conference.
Modic exhorted business-to-business editors to give more attention to reader needs, noting that it is the “editor’s responsibility to insure that business magazines serve the reader first—for only in that way can we serve the advertiser best.”
He added, “The ASBPE has updated its code of ethics. Now we have to insure that we live by it.”

Magazines of the Year

For its work in 2005, Computerworld was recognized as the top magazine among those of 80,000 circulation or larger, while CSO, a publication for security executives of companies, was honored in the under-80,000-circulation category.
Large circulation magazines given honorable mention in the Magazine of the Year category were CFO, a publication for finance executives, and CIO, which targets information executives. Boston-based CFO is part of The Economist Group, while CIO also is an IDG publication in Framingham.
In the under-80,000-circulation category, ASBPE gave honorable mentions to Information Security, a TechTarget publication based in Needham, Mass., and Meetings & Conventions, which belongs to Secaucus, N.J.-based Northstar Travel Media.

Judges Comments

Judges said of Computerworld that it was “packed with useful information with never a fluffy issue—difficult for any monthly magazine, and they do it weekly.”
About CSO, judges noted that it “takes risks with subject matter,” and that “design and copy complement each other extraordinarily well,” with covers that “have attitude.”
Computerworld and CSO also were among the largest winners of individual national Azbee Gold Awards from ASBPE, garnering five each. Each had also won the Magazine of the Year award previously, in 2004.
Azbees are given in 40 categories. Fifteen magazines won Golds in editorial categories; 23 in graphics, and six in digital.

Barr Winner Writes With Sensitivity About Drownings

Mogharabi, the Barr Award winner, is the business editor of Aquatics International’s Hanley Wood sister publication, Pool & Spa News. She had only recently received her masters degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism when she began exploring the high percentage of drownings involving blacks and Hispanics in America.
Her sensitive yet dispassionate handling of the complex, emotional issue appeared in the October and November 2005 issues of Aquatics International. ASBPE’s third annual Stephen Barr Award, accompanied by a $500 cash prize, is named in memory of a CFO magazine contributing editor who died in 2002 at the age of 43.
Mogharabi was also a winner of one of ASBPE’s Young Leader Scholarships, which provides free registration to the Society’s National Editorial Conference.
“Last year was a great one for business-to-business publications,” said Roy Harris, ASBPE’s national president and a senior editor of CFO. “Winning entries helped readers understand everything from the continuing surge in Chinese markets to the latest shocks from information technology, to new ways in which computers are used in making animated movies.”

Complete Information on the Award Winners

Download the 36-page PDF awards brochure (407KB). It includes:

• a full list of all the national award winners,
• a feature detailing the achievements Lifetime Achievement Award winner Stan Modic,
• a feature about Stephen Barr Award winner Shabnam Mogharabi,
• details on the Magazine of the Year Award winners,
• information about the judges,
• a message from the awards committee chair,
• information about the society and its officers.