ASBPE honored IEEE Spectrum and Cannabis Business Times as the B2B Magazines of the Year for 2018, and named StateScoop.com as its Website of the Year. The organization of business-to-business editors chose UBM Animal Health 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 CEO Update.

View the online winners’ gallery here. 

National Azbee Winners

The ASBPE awards, in Overall Excellence, Online, Design, and Print divisions, were presented as part of its 40th annual Azbee Awards of Excellence banquet, held in conjunction with ASBPE’s 2018 B2B Media Success Conference, held May 10-11 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. ASBPE, which represents more than 1,000 journalists for B2B publications.

This year more than 1,000 entries were received and more than 100 experienced B2B editors and designers judged the 78 categories of entries.

IEEE Spectrum magazine was honored as Magazine of the Year among publications of more than $3 million revenue. Honorable mentions in the category went to The Progressive Farmer and Institutional Investor Magazine, with CSP, Engineering News-Record, Exhibitor magazine, Florida Trend, EXHIBITOR magazine, Professional Builder, and the Scientist filling out the Top Ten magazines.

Cannabis Business Times magazine was honored as Magazine of the Year among publications of less than $3 million revenue. Honorable-mention recipients were ABA Journal and Security Management magazine, while Athletic Business Magazine, Business Jet Traveler, design:retail, Insurance Business America, Pragmatic Marketer, tED, and Workforce Magazine rounded out the Top Ten.

In the Website of the Year competition, StateScoop.com earned the top honor, and TechRepublic’s website and Engineering News-Record’s ENR.com won honorable mentions. Filling out the rest of the Top Ten were Big Law Business, CIO, Craft Brewing Business, Financial-Planning.com, Insurance Business America, Law360, and tedmag.com.

In the Best Cross-Platform Package of the Year competition, UBM Animal Health was honored with the best cross-platform package for “Pet pain and death: A dvm360 Leadership Challenge.” Water & Wastes Digest and IEEE Spectrum won honorable mentions. Filling out the rest of the Top Ten were CSP, Engineering News-Record, Financial Planning, Multifamily Executive, restaurant development + design, Training Industry Magazine, and ZDNet.

Click here to view a gallery of winners.

Among the awards in individual Print categories, the Gold award for Feature Series went to Automotive News, while IEEE SPECTRUM and ABA Journal won for General-Interest Feature and Engineering News-Record won for Case History and Oregon Business and Cannabis Business Times and PSDA won for Company Profile. EXHIBITOR magazine won for How-To Article, and Risk Management Magazine and Foodservice Equipment & Supplies won for Individual Profile. Among others winning Golds were Inside Unmanned Systems for News Analysis; Transport Topics for On-Site Trade Show Coverage; Automotive News for Original Research; strategy+business for Technical Article; and Harvard Business School for Visual Storytelling.

The most popular individual categories in the Design division were the front cover and opening page/spread categories. Lawn & Landscape and Security Management won Gold for Front Cover- Illustration, while Civil Engineering magazine won gold for Feature Article Design. The publication design:retail won in the Magazine Design category.

Related: See who won in the 2018 Regional Azbee Awards.

In the Online division, the most popular categories were once again the Web Feature Article and Impact/Investigative. In digital categories, CSO won for Enterprise News Story. TechRepublic won for Video-Tutorial, while ABA Journal won for Impact/Investigative. Best New or Relaunched Website honors went to tED magazine. Among the media categories, Best Podcast went to Big Law Business, Best Photo Gallery went to TechTarget, and Architect was recognized for its social media efforts.

Stephen Barr Award

ASBPE’s Stephen Barr Award, its top individual feature writing prize, went to Senior Editor Renee Knight, for her October 2017 news analysis package “After the Storm,” published by Inside Unmanned Systems magazine. Knight’s work offered a dramatic first-hand account of the life-saving contributions of drone aircraft during Hurricane Harvey in Texas and showcased the promise of unmanned systems in future disasters.

One Stephen Barr judge cited her “clear and compelling writing about an important subject,” which outshone much of the best reporting about the hurricane in the national media, while adding industry-based detail that other more-general news sources couldn’t provide. Said another judge: “The piece identified a new and fascinating aspect of hurricane survival, relief and recovery. [It] conveyed numerous specific examples of drone applications, and it captured the helpful and can-do spirit of the drone operators. The hurricane response was a combination of old-fashioned pitching-in to help with a new technological tool.”

This is the 15th Stephen Barr Award. It is named for one of ASBPE’s most honored journalists, who died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 43. Unlike other ASBPE awards, it honors individual writing across our feature categories, and especially work that shows inventiveness, insight, balance, depth of investigation, and impact on readers. A check for $500 accompanies the award, endowed by Stephen Barr’s parents and administered by the ASBPE Foundation.

Learn more about Knight and her work here.

Journalism That Matters

The ASBPE Foundation recognized the nonprofit VTDigger, an online publication covering Vermont business and government and edited by Anne Galloway, for its investigative reporting.

In 2014, the Montpelier-based VTDigger uncovered possible financial improprieties by one of Vermont’s most prominent business people, Bill Stenger, and his partners in an investment firm developing Jay Peak, a winter recreation resort near the Canadian border. As a result of several years of reporting by the publication, led by Founding Editor Galloway, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation and later brought charges against Stenger and his partners.

Learn more about Galloway and her work here.

Young Leader Scholars

ASBPE also named three Young Leader Scholars at the banquet:

Kelly Limpert has worked for North Coast Media since 2015 and manages online content, social media, e-newsletters, video editing and more for several of the company’s brands. She was a member of the team that took home the 2016 ASBPE National Gold award for social media presence.

Nicholas Rando is senior production editor for TechTarget’s Central Editorial department. He joined the company in 2014 and he copy edits and publishes articles online for all TechTarget’s media groups, focusing specifically on news and networking content. He also handles training sessions on TechTarget’s content management system.

Moriah Sargent is a senior managing editor at TechTarget, where she manages workflow and edits more than 60 e-publications a year, including about 20 e-zines. She has held various writing and editing roles during her four years at the company. One of her favorite things about editing is distilling complicated information into language that is easily understood.

Learn more about the three 2018 Young Leaders.

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.