[Professional Blog] Gold Tabbie

UPDATED with comment from Dawn Chafe.

Atlantic Business magazine has won double Gold in the 2010 Tabbie international business press awards.

The Tabbie Awards is an international business-to-business magazine competition, presented by Trade, Association and Business Publications International (TABPI). According to its web site, TABPI endeavors to bring together editors working for English-language publications worldwide, and encourage a common dedication to editorial ethics and excellence.

The 2010 Tabbie Awards attracted nearly 500 entries, with nominations from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., India, New Zealand and South Africa. And Atlantic Business magazine walked away with two Gold awards for writing, one each for Managing Editor Dawn Chafe and Contributing Editor Alec Bruce.

In the Editors Column category, Chafe won for Michaels Big Fat Fib, which appeared in the July/August 2009 edition as a rebuttal to Michael Economides anti-green energy at the 2009 NOIA Conference.

From its headline to the last sentence, this column caught my attention, wrote one of the judges. I thought it was elegantly and intelligently written as well as entertaining. The author made a very persuasive argument to continue the dialogue about alternative energy. Another judge said the story was engaging with clever use of words and grammar.

Alec Bruce won in the Regular Column category, for his Winner Takes All commentary on competitiveness.

A well-written, engaging column, the judges wrote. The author uses interesting and punchy text and analogies to drive his point home. If I received this magazine, it would likely be the first article Id turn to.

Much of the credit for these awards and the magazines success can be attributed to Dawn Chafe, who joined the magazine as a freelancer in 1997 and became editor in 1998.

I've always thought that Newfoundland media are good enough to compete anywhere, and this affirms that thought, said Chafe, when I asked for a comment. For me personally, it's a tremendous honour (trite perhaps, but assuredly true). I'm still just trying to wrap my head around the fact that my work was deemed worthy of recognition by an international panel of judges. On a professional level, it vindicates my crusade for quality editorial content. And, to be fair, this award deserves to be equally shared with Hubert and Edwina Hutton, my publisher and COO. If they didn't have the guts to publish award-winning material, we wouldn't have the product and audience we do. They make Atlantic Business Magazine a very rewarding place to work.

Atlantic Business is the highest circulation business magazine in Atlantic Canada, with an audited distribution of 37,000 copies per issue. It was founded in 1989.

To read the winning entries and I highy recommend you do so just follow this link and scroll down until you see them.