About the Azbee Awards
Questions? Get answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the awards. Or jump to:
Judging process
Previous winners
Magazine of the Year
Newsletter of the Year
B2B Web Site of the Year
Multi-Platform Presentation of the Year
Journalism that Matters
Stephen Barr Award
Lifetime Achievement Award
Young Leaders Scholarship
Entries for the 2020 Azbee awards will open in November!
The American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) will open entries for the 2020 Azbee Awards of Excellence in November. The Azbee Awards are highly competitive and celebrate the highest quality reporting, editing and design in business-to-business, trade, association and professional publications. The awards honor all types of publications including magazines, newspapers, newsletters, websites, and digital media. Take a look at the 2019 winner’s gallery for inspiration.
About the Azbee Awards
ASBPE’s Azbee Awards of Excellence program is one of the most competitive there is for business-to-business, trade, association, and professional publications. The awards recognize outstanding work by magazines, newsletters, and digital media — Web sites, e-newsletters, digital magazines, and blogs.
The competition is open to all U.S.-based publications. Free ASBPE membership is not required for entry, but members receive a discount on entry fees.
For both print and digital awards, the top entries nationwide receive national awards.
Entries also compete against others in their own regions. The regions for the Azbees are as follows:
Young Leaders Scholarship
To help young editors who are just starting their careers, ASBPE started the annual Young Leaders Scholarship in 2001. The scholarship allows younger editors who might otherwise be unable to attend the ASBPE National Conference or Boot Camps. It is open to all business editors, including print and Web.
Scholarships pay the conference or boot camp and hotel room costs for up to five U.S. applicants. (Applicants or their publishing companies are responsible for transportation to and from the conference, any nonconference meals, and other incurred costs.) Scholarship recipients also receive a free one-year membership to ASBPE if they are not already members.
Qualifications for the scholarship include the following:
- Applicant must be 30 years of age or younger.
- Applicant must have worked at least two years as an editor of a business magazine or the magazine’s associated Internet publication.
- Candidacy must be sponsored by applicant’s chief editor.
- Applicant must plan to continue in the business press as a career.
- Applicant may not be a past ASBPE Young Leaders Scholarship winner.
About the Judging Process
Experienced judges with background in business publications read each editorial, design, Web, newsletter, and Magazine of the Year entry. Their introduction to each entry are required and important essays of 250 words or fewer, one describing the publication’s mission and readership and one discussing both the work that went into the entry and its significance to readers.
The following are the general criteria for judging:
Editorial (and newsletter) judging — based on quality of writing, reporting and editing; development of the subject; presentation, and value to readers.
Design judging — layout and composition; use of typography, graphics and photography; content; originality; relevance to the related story or publication, and how easily the entry communicates useful information to the reader.
Web judging — reporting, writing, design, usability, readability, organization, value to readers, interactivity and effective use of online technology.
Previous Awards of Excellence winners |
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| 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | |
| 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | |
| 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | |
| 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | |
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | ||
Magazine of the Year
Top honors go to the Magazine of the Year in our two revenue divisions: More than $3 million revenue and less than $3 million revenue. The divisions are based on average revenue among all participating publications. (More on the revenue divisions.)
Judging is based on five criteria:
1) quality of writing, reporting and editing;
2) value and usefulness to the reader
3) editorial organization
4) interaction with readers
5) layout and design
Past winners include:
| 2020 | Security Management |
EXHIBITOR |
| 2019 | tED Magazine |
Professional Builder |
| 2018 | Cannabis Business Times |
IEEE Spectrum |
| 2017 | Security Management Magazine |
QSR Magazine |
| 2016 | The American Lawyer |
Emergency Management |
| 2015 | FSR magazine |
Restaurant Business |
| 2014 | ABA Journal |
Builder |
| 2013 | Emergency Management | H&HN (Hospitals & Health Networks) |
| 2012 | Music Inc. | IEEE Spectrum |
| 2011 | Stitches | The Scientist |
| 2010 | SC Magazine | Computerworld |
| 2009 | The Scientist | Fortune Small Business |
| 2008 | The Scientist | Restaurants & Institutions |
| 2007 | Public CIO | Builder |
| 2006 | CSO | Computerworld |
| 2005 | CMO | Restaurants & Institutions |
| 2004 | CSO | Computerworld |
| 2003 | SQL Server | CFO |
| 2002 | HealthLeaders | CIO |
| 2001 | Sales & Marketing Management |
Selling Power |
| 2000 | Meetings & Conventions | Selling Power |
| 1999 | HomeCare | CIO |
| 1998 | civic.com | CFO |
| 1997 | Best’s Review | Selling Power |
B2B Website of the Year
Entries for the B2B Website of the Year category are judged on:
1. the quality of writing, reporting, and editing
2. value and usefulness to readers,
3. design,
4. effectiveness in quick communication of information,
5. navigation ease,
6. interactivity and community,
7. use of Web technologies and graphic design to support and add usefulness to editorial,
8. legibility and readability,
9. clear distinctions between editorial and advertising,
10. depth of information, and
11) information architecture/editorial organization.
Past winners include:
| 2020 | The Scientist |
| 2019 | American Banker |
| 2018 | StateScoop.com |
| 2017 | Big Law Business |
| 2016 | Architect |
| 2015 | Hotel News Now |
| 2014 | SHRM Online |
| 2013 | ENR.com |
| 2012 | Computerworld.com |
| 2011 | dvm360.com |
| 2010 | CIO.com |
| 2009 | BusinessWeek.com |
| 2008 | Computerworld.com |
| 2007 | PCWorld.com |
| 2006 | Computerworld.com |
| 2005 | CMOmagazine.com |
| 2004 | Tie: PCmag.com and BusinessWeek.com |
| 2003 | Variety.com |
| 2002 | PCWorld.com |
| 2001 | FCW.com |
| 2000 | BestReview.com |
| 1999 | BTNmag.com |
| 1998 | WinMag.com |
Cross-Platform Package of the Year
The Cross-Platform Package of the Year category recognizes the coordination of print and digital media packages in the presentation of a single topic. It honors excellence in coordinating print with digital platforms, e.g. Web sites, e-newsletters, blogs, Webinars, or podcasts.
Judges examine:
- coordination of print and digital media that makes excellent use of the qualities of both approaches
- the originality in using the print and digital forms
- the journalism
- design, information architecture/editorial organization
- other criteria mentioned in the Web Site of the Year category
Past winners include:
Newsletter of the year
The Newsletter of the Year category is open to B2B for-profit or not-for-profit print newsletters, whose frequency is weekly or less, i.e. do not enter dailies or twice-a-week publications.
Judges examine:
- editorial organization
- reporting/writing
- usefulness to readers
- reader engagement
- layout and design
Past winners include:
| 2018 | CEO Update |
| 2017 | No-Till Farmer |
Journalism That Matters Award
The Journalism That Matters Award was first presented in 2009. The award was inspired by ASBPE’s book of the same title, which features case studies of B2B journalists whose articles brought about change within their industries. Editors may nominate themselves or a deserving colleague.
The first winner of the Journalism That Matters Award was HSToday editor David Silverberg in 2009. Silverberg was honored for his criticism in the pages of his homeland-security magazine of the National Football League’s unwillingness to run advertisements mentioning terrorism, borders, and immigration. After the HSToday articles, the NFL changed its policy.
And in 2011, ASBPE presented its second Journalism That Matters Award to The Spine Journal, which took a major step toward protecting the integrity of all scientific publishing in its June 2011 issue. The special issue was devoted to “shining a critical light on the limitations of industry-sponsored research.”
In May 2018, the ASBPE Foundation recognized the nonprofit VTDigger, an online publication covering Vermont business and government, for its investigative reporting. In 2014, 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, led by Founding Editor Anne Galloway, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation and later brought charges against Stenger and his partners.
More about the establishment of the Journalism That Matters Award.
Stephen Barr Award
This “best in class” prize, which comes with a $500 cash award, goes to the individual writer whose work most reflects inventiveness of approach (and especially use of narrative style), insightfulness, balance in the presentation of a complex subject, depth of investigation, and impact among the community of readers.
More About the Barr Awards
Past ASBPE president Roy Harris reflects on Barr winners present and past, the judges, and the fun of giving out the awards in this blog post.
Those qualities are among the ones exemplified by Stephen Barr, a perennial ASBPE excellence-award winner in his role as senior contributing editor of CFO magazine. Stephen died in 2002, at age 43. The award is endowed by his family, and awarded through the ASBPE Foundation. Past winners include:
- Meagan Parrish of Pharma Manufacturingfor her December 2019 article titled “The Recall Effect.”
- Kevin Davis of ABA Journal for his July 2018 article titled “Under Questioning: The Chicago police legacy of extracting false confessions is costing the city millions.”
- Renee Knight of Inside Unmanned Systems for her October 2017 news analysis package titled “After the Storm.“
- Louise Esola of Business Insurance for her December 2016 “Who Pays to Heal Mental Injuries of First Responders?”
- Tom Wadsworth of Door + Access Systems newsmagazine for his Fall 2015 article “The Worst Garage Door Company in the Nation.”
- Ann Marsh of Financial Planning magazine for her May 2014 article “Could Financial Planning Help Stem the Rate of Military Suicides?”
- David Hechler of Corporate Counsel magazine for his April 2013 article, “Lost in Translation,” which explained the legal developments surrounding Toyota’s problems with sudden acceleration.
- Burt Helm of Inc. Magazine for his November 2012 story, “After the Squeeze,” which examined the causes and effects of a bank-lending drought that has disproportionately hit the small-business people who are the publication’s main audience.
- Jenna Greene, for her article “Civil Inaction”, exploring the legal quagmire that has prevented victims of radioactive contamination near Washington State’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation from receiving justice, in the June 20, 2011 issue of The National Law Journal.
- Michael Peltz, for his article “Inside the Machine: A Journey Into the World of High-Frequency Trading,” in the June 2010 edition of Institutional Investor.
- Tom Zind, freelance writer, for his article “A Killer in the Ranks” in Electrical Construction and Maintenance (EC&M).
- Frank Lessiter, editor of American Farriers Journal, for his four-part series, “Soring,” from July/August to December 2008.
- David Cullen, for his role as coordinator of FleetOwner’s August 2007 feature “Fuel: Diesel and Beyond”
- David McClintick, for his feature article “How Harvard Lost Russia” in Institutional Investor January 2006
- Shabnam Mogharabi, for her feature series “Minority Report” in Aquatics International
- John Gibeaut, for two ABA Journal articles, “The Good Fight Gets Harder” and “Opening Sentences”
- Adam Minter, for his three-part series in Scrap magazine, “Scrap in China”
Contest entrants don’t compete directly for the Barr Award. Rather, a panel of judges will select the “best in show” among the top feature-writing categories, identifying the finest example of writing that displays the qualities Barr’s work exemplified:
- inventiveness of approach (and especially use of narrative style),
- insight and balance in the presentation of a complex subject,
- depth of investigation, and
- impact among the community of readers.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Our Lifetime Achievement Award was established in 2000 to recognize editors who have made significant and lasting contributions to our editorial profession and to the industries their magazines serve. Recipients have included:
- Roy J. Harris Jr., author and former CFO editor and Wall Street Journal reporter
- Julia Homer, former founding editor of CFO magazine
- Abe Peck, Medill professor, writer, B2B editorial consultant
- Jan White, designer, teacher, and “visual journalist”
- Stan Modic, senior editorial advisor, columnist, Nelson Publishing
- Don Ranly, professor emeritus, University of Missouri School of Journalism
- Patrick J. McGovern, founder and chairman, International Data Group
- Dana Chase Jr., chairman, Dana Chase Publications, and editorial director of Appliance magazine
- Howard Rauch, editorial consultant
- Vernon Henry of Advanstar Communications
- Bernie Knill of Penton Media
To receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, a candidate must meet four requirements:1) Significant involvement (25 years or more) with business publications. Nominees need not currently hold editorial positions, and may be retired, but ideally will have spent the bulk of their careers in senior editorial positions or will have served the industry in some significant way. Nominees need not be members of ASBPE. Past nominees not selected in previous years are encouraged to reapply.Please provide the nominee’s current title and employer/business (if retired, please state such). Provide a brief description or résumé of the nominee’s job history. Include dates, job titles, magazines, companies.2) A commitment to editorial excellence. This may be demonstrated by general reputation of their publication(s); industry-related awards (e.g., ASBPE Azbees, Neal Awards, Folio:, Tabbies); internal company awards; other forms of recognition or other valid measures of editorial success.3) A commitment to the business/professional press. Nominees should be or should have been involved in lending their experience and time to benefit others in the business press. For example, this may be participation in local or national business press or related organizations; corporate or university teaching; mentoring programs; or significant research or publication of articles on business press issues.4) A commitment to the industry(ies) the nominee’s publication(s) serve. Examples might include committee work with trade or professional associations or standards groups; frequent speaking engagements at industry events; significant research or publication of articles on industry issues; or significant advocacy work with government agencies.The Lifetime Achievement Award winner will receive the award on the evening of the awards banquet, where the honoree also will receive a special tribute. The winner’s name will be announced to the public prior to the banquet. A call for nominations goes out around the beginning of each year.