QSR, Security Management, Big Law Business Win Top 2017 ASBPE Honors; Louise Esola of Business Insurance Receives Its Stephen Barr Award

ASBPE honored QSR magazine and Security Management magazine as the B2B Magazines of the Year for 2017, and named Big Law Business as its Website of the Year. The organization of business-to-business editors chose Meatingplace as winner of its award for Best Cross-Platform Package of the Year. Top honors for the association’s newest category, Newsletter of the Year, went to No-Till Farmer.

View the winners’ gallery Download a list of the winners (PDF)

ASBPE’s Stephen Barr Award, its top individual feature writing prize, went to Louise Esola, who has served as a Business Insurance staff reporter and freelancer for more than 10 years. Esola’s December 2016 investigative feature package “Who Pays to Heal Mental Injuries of First Responders?” focused on repercussions from recent mass shootings in Orlando, Fla., and San Bernardino, Calif. Previously, Esola worked as a reporter and columnist for the North County Times, a newspaper serving the area north of San Diego, where she still lives. A writer of great skill, Louise is prized by her Business Insurance editors as someone willing to tackle any subject, and able to adopt the right tone, style and voice to draw readers in and explain complex issues with clarity and empathy. Read more about Louise Esola’s Stephen Barr Award.

The ASBPE honors, in Overall Excellence, Online, Design, and Print divisions, were presented as part of its 39th annual Azbee Awards of Excellence banquet, held in conjunction with ASBPE’s 2017 B2B Media Success Conference, held May 18 at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. ASBPE, which represents nearly 1,000 journalists for B2B, or “trade publications,” was originally known as the American Society of Business Press Editors.

This year, nearly 1,200 Azbee entries were submitted in 76 categories.

ASBPE named five Young Leader Scholars at the banquet: Alyssa Provazza, senior managing editor for TechTarget’s End-User Computing Media Group; Megan Gates, associate editor at Security Management magazine; Allison Barwacz, digital media content producer for North Coast Media; Lindsay Chase, assistant director of central editorial production at TechTarget and Lilly Chapa, assistant editor at Security Management. Learn more about the five 2017 Young Leaders.

QSR magazine was honored as Magazine of the Year among publications of more than $3 million revenue. Honorable mentions in the category went to Restaurant Business and The Scientist, with The American Lawyer, Automotive News, CSP magazine, DTN/The Progressive Farmer, EXHIBITOR magazine, Modern Healthcare magazine and Professional Builder filling out the Top Ten magazines.

Security Management magazine was honored as Magazine of the Year among publications of less than $3 million revenue. Honorable-mention recipients were ABA Journal and FSR magazine, while restaurant development + design, Training Industry magazine, Architectural Lighting, Cannabis Business Times, Counselor, Oregon Business and Pragmatic Marketer rounded out the Top Ten.

In the Website of the Year competition, Big Law Business’ bol.bna.com site earned the top honor, and Restaurant Business’ restaurantbusinessonline.com and Law360’s law360.com site won honorable mentions. Filling out the rest of the Top Ten were investmentnews.com, ENR.com, tedmag.com, turfmagazine.com, wardsauto.com, architectmagazine.com, and csoonline.com.

In the Best Cross-Platform Package of the Year competition, Meatingplace was honored with the best cross-platform package for “Automated for the People.” dvm360/Firstline/Vetted and InvestmentNews won honorable mentions. Filling out the rest of the Top Ten were Multifamily Executive, Remodeling, strategy+business, ABA Journal, Defense News, Financial Planning, and FoodService Director.

Click here to view a gallery of the winners

New categories added this year included Newsletter of the Year, Online Q&A, New Publication Design and Single Topic Coverage by a Team.

Among the awards in individual Print categories, the Gold award for Feature Series went to Heavy Duty Trucking, while HR Magazine and Frozen & Refrigerated Buyer won for General-Interest Feature and Human Resource Executive won for Case History and Oregon Business and Automotive News won for Company Profile. EXHIBITOR magazine won for How-To Article, and strategy+business won for Individual Profile. Among others winning Golds were Engineering News-Record for News Analysis; Defense News for On-Site Trade Show Coverage; EXHIBITOR magazine for Original Research; strategy+business for Technical Article; and EXHIBITOR magazine for Visual Storytelling.

The most popular individual categories in the Design division were the front cover and opening page/spread categories. Plant Services and Security Management won Gold for Front Cover- Illustration, while Windpower Engineering & Development and Builder won for Feature Article Design. Restaurant Business won in the Magazine Design category.

In the Online division, the most popular categories were once again the Web Feature Article and Impact/Investigative. In Digital categories, Law360 won for Enterprise News Story. ProTradeCraft won for Video-Tutorial, while MedPage Today won for Impact/Investigative. Best New or Relaunched Website honors went to HealthLeaders Media. Among the media categories, Best Podcast went to Plastics News, Best Photo Gallery went to CSOonline, and Landscape Management was recognized for its social media efforts.

Related: See who won in the 2017 Regional Azbee Awards.

About ASBPE

Founded in 1964 as the American Society of Business Press Editors, ASBPE is the professional association for full-time and freelance editors, writers, art directors, and designers employed in the business, trade, and specialty press. The official name was changed to the American Society of Business Publication Editors in 1997, and to ASBPE in 2012. ASBPE has chapters in cities nationwide, including Chicago, Boston, New York, Kansas City, Cleveland and Washington, D.C.

Its Stephen Barr Award, sponsored by the nonprofit ASBPE Foundation, is named for one of ASBPE’s more honored journalists, who died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 43. It recognizes individual writing across the Azbee’s feature categories.