WA Business News’ reporting and production values have again been recognised with awards from the Alliance of Area Business Publications.
WA Business News’ reporting and production values have again been recognised with awards from the Alliance of Area Business Publications.
The newspaper won bronze in the Best Newspaper: Small Tabloid category, which is open to regional business publications.
WA Business News was also awarded bronze in the Best Scoop: Small Tabloid for a story by Jim Hawtin that broke news of the attempt by Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group to plaint mining leases held by BHP Billiton.
The alliance represents 66 regional business publications, mainly in North America, and the awards were presented at a gala finale to its annual conference, held this year in Detroit, Michigan.
In awarding the Best Newspaper bronze award to WA Business News, the same award the newspaper won in 2003, the judges were enthusiastic about the newspaper’s consistency judged from four copies of the publication, with three dates required and fourth self-selected by the nominee.
“This publication does a lot of things right: clean, attractive design, extensive use of colour, appropriate graphic and list information, and a good mix of hard news and feature stories,” were the judges’ reported comments.
Silver was won by the The State Journal, based in Charleston, West Virginia, which has a weekly circulation of 10,000 and the gold award was won by another US publication, Mainbiz, from Maine, which publishes 12,000 newspapers every fortnight.
Hawtin’s story “FMG Makes Grab for BHP prospects,” WA Business News October 14, was recognised for its breaking news that the upstart iron ore miner had sought to claim leases from BHP.
Hawtin, who has since left WA Business News to pursue a career in public relations, revealed the news of the attempted plaint, a recurring theme in businesses linked to Mr Forrest.
The story was followed up in the business pages of The Australian newspaper.
The judges recognised the place of resources in Western Australia and the bitterly contested efforts by all publications to break news in this field.
“Mining industries dominate Western Australia, so when WA Business News learned that a local entrepreneur was trying to muscle in on global iron ore mining giants, it’s tough to keep that under wraps,” the judges commented.
“The story was later matched by a rival daily, but it couldn’t be advanced, yet another testament to the WA Business News scoop.”
WA Business News publisher Harry Kleyn, who attended the convention and was on hand to receive the award in Detroit, said the recognition was invaluable.
"Our team can be justifiably proud of their instrumental role in putting together a newspaper that is receiving such a strong international endorsement," Mr Kleyn said after the win.
The alliance represents 66 publications dedicated to delivering customised regional business news to more than 1.2 million business professionals in the US, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Australia.
