SABEW 2006 Best in Business contest award winners
Column category
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Category: Column - Giant newspapers
Steve Bailey of The Boston Globe - Download Electronic copy - PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4
Judges Comments
Steve Bailey
Possessing the brain of a business columnist and the heart of a metro columnist, Steve Bailey is a double threat. He cares for his town and can write about outsized characters and perform columnist theater with the best. But he also gets the numbers, which often reveal truths beyond the ken of metro scribes. Bailey shamed Gov. Mitt Romney’s passiveness on job growth by traveling to Fairhaven, Mass., where the governor had ignored 185 at-risk AT&T jobs. Great piece on concessionaire Aramark’s decision to start fingerprinting its low-paid, overworked Fenway workers. And he surprised the Middlesex Retirement System fat cats by showing up at their own Florida junket, scaring them into paying their own way.
Gretchen Morgenson of The New York Times - Download PDF
Judges Comments
Gretchen Morgenson
Morgenson writes with confidence, wit and indignation, a combination that is particularly potent when she backs up her allegations with the solid facts. She manages to present a numbers-driven analysis in a thoughtful and readable way. Nowhere is that more evident than when she takes on the issue of corporate pay. In one column, she detailed the myriad of ways that United Airlines executives were lining their pockets as they emerged from bankruptcy. In another, she took the Business Roundtable to task for a glowing report portraying executive pay as reasonable while ignoring add-ons such as dividends paid on restricted stock.
Alan Murray of The Wall Street Journal - Download Electronic copy - PDF1, PDF2
Judges Comments
Alan Murray
Alan Murray can make national news with his chronicles of intrigue in the Hewlett-Packard boardroom, or softly engage with his analysis of how two CEOs are “the Cain and Able of the corporate world.” You can’t beat a combination of hard-news impact and style.
Judges - Column: Giant
Jay Hancock - The Baltimore Sun
Greg Hinz - Crain’s Chicago Business
Jeff Harrington - St. Petersburg Times
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Category: Column - Large newspapers
Sheryl Harris of the Cleveland Plain Dealer - Download Electronic Copy - PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4, PDF5
Judges Comments
Sheryl Harris
These columns stood out as being particularly original and useful, from her Hispanics issues column to her shocking take on telephone bad debt abusers. These columns took some well-plowed ground and seeded it effectively and, at times, dramatically.
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Al Lewis of The Denver Post - Download Electronic Copy - PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4
Judges Comments
Al Lewis
These were compelling columns, well-written and conceived. Each provided either an unusual take on an on-going news story (his “tour” of Kozlowski’s billionaire log cabin) or truly compelling news break of his own making (Qwest employees’ decision to end their lives ahead of the expiration of their retiree life insurance). By the end, I was eagerly anticipating the next column to see what else awaited me.
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Mitchell Schnurman of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Download PDF
Judges Comments
Mitchell Schnurman
These are exceptionally well-reported columns, rich with sources, detail and analysis. They’re also well-written, relevant and significant.
Judges - Column: Large
Kathy Kristof - Los Angeles Times
David Andelman - Forbes.com
Mark Truby - The Detroit News
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Category: Column - Medium newspapers
Dave Elbert of the Des Moines Register - Download Electronic Copy - PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4, PDF5, PDF6, PDF7, PDF8
Judges Comments
David Elbert
It’s hard to find a buried lede or a hedged opinion in an Elbert column. Last rites for Iowa’s quixotic rain forest project were said and done by Elbert’s second line, and you were delighted to read on to get details. His contrarian piece on the failure of big state incentives to save jobs at a Maytag plant began this way: “Government can’t do everything, and there are times when it should do nothing. This week we saw a bad example of government trying to do too much. Fortunately, it failed.” Elbert’s columns are also well reported, as demonstrated by his Kafkaesque tale of Pella flack who lost her job when a lying co-worker told stories to superiors.
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David Hendricks of the San Antonio Express-News - Download PDF
Judges Comments
David Hendricks
One true measure of a columnist is picking topics keen to one’s local economy. Hendrick’s was driven and focused on that benchmark in San Antonio. His columns tuned into such issues as corporate reticence over the immigration hot-button and the troubled North American Development Bank in San Antonio. He was particularly aggressive urging federal help for the development bank, delineating border projects that could be lost if the bank was forced to close. In a third column, Hendricks weighed in on the Shakespearean-like Enron debacle with some harsh criticism of an unrepentant Ken lay who died in Aspen’s “playground of the rich, as a ruined, bitter and disillusioned man.”
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Brier Dudley of The Seattle Times - Download electronic copy - PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4, PDF5, PDF6, PDF7
Judges Comments
Brier Dudley
In technology savvy Seattle, tech columnist Brier Dudley likely could find an audience merely by pitching his copy at the geek-erati. Instead, his pieces hit home with the average reader, but without condescending, i.e. likening what the internet could do to the newspaper business to “watching the Incas greet the Spanish conquistadors in 1528.” Solid work.
Judges - Column: Medium
Jay Hancock - The Baltimore Sun
Greg Hinz - Crain’s Chicago Business
Jeff Harrington - St. Petersburg Times
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Category: Column - Small newspapers
Susan Miller of the Ledger-Enquirer (Columbus, Ga.) - Download PDF
Judges Comments
Susan Miller
These quirkily, personal columns each tell small businesses (and executives of larger companies as well) some interesting lessons about how to succeed at all levels.
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Dan Voelpel of The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.) - Download PDF
Judges Comments
Dan Voelpel
A unique and original perspective on companies and issues that are important to his local community. These are quite unique stores, each told in a compelling fashion and attention to detail and color, but each with an important business point as well.
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Jon Chesto of The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Mass.) - Download PDF
Judges Comments
Jon Chesto
Interesting takes on important local issues. From cell service the Big Dig to the revival of HoJos (originally a Quincy invention), to a successor to Tower Records, he has chosen quirky issues that have an interesting perspective.
Judges - Column: Small
Kathy Kristof - Los Angeles Times
David Andelman - Forbes.com
Mark Truby - The Detroit News
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Category: Column - Weekly newspapers
Alair Townsend of Crain's New York Business - Download PDF
Judges Comments
Alair Townsend
Alair Townsend skewers the excesses of state and city government, and drills into complex subjects like city budgeting and mandatory health insurance. As a publisher and former city official, she also brings a rare perspective. She criticized a Hewlett-Packard director for “dribbling out his gripes to the press. All the furor that followed was because of this fact. It was the original sin.” Agree or disagree, her crisp, tart tone reminds us of the late Molly Ivins - if Ivins were reborn as a conservative, pro-business New Yorker.
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Ron Gifford of the Indianapolis Business Journal - Download Electronic Copy - PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4
Judges Comments
“There Ought to Be a Law” by Ron Gifford
Ron Gifford isn’t a journalist, and he doesn’t pretend to be one. “My name is Ron G.,” he wrote in the Indianapolis Business Journal. “And I’m a registered lobbyist.” With insight and flair, Gifford used his column to bring readers inside Indiana politics, from jury selection to the class-action business. Most trenchantly, he warned readers to take concerns about electronic voting seriously. What’s the acronym for the new Help America Vote Act? “HAVA - as in ‘HAVA lot of fun trying to figure out how to spend billions of dollars on voting machines that don’t work and raise suspicions about stolen elections.”
Judges - Column: Weekly
Mitchell Schnurman - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Vindu Goel - San Jose Murcury News
David Loenhardt - The New York Times
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Category: Column - Real-time news organizations
Michael Lewis of Bloomberg News: “What the Money Culture Breeds” - Download electronic copy - PDF1, PDF2, PDF3, PDF4
Judges Comments
“What the Money Culture Breeds” by Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis’ work makes you laugh out loud, and it makes you think. In one column, he took readers inside the financial markets and inside one of the biggest stories of the early 21st century: the enormous fortunes being made by people who were already doing very well. “One of the miracles of Wall Street,” he wrote, “is its ability to create a class system without class resentment.” At Barnes & Noble these days, Lewis may pass for an extremely successful sportswriter, but his column betrays his roots, and business readers are thankful for it.
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Michael Rapoport of Dow Jones Newswires - Download PDF
Judges Comments
“In the Money” by Michael Rapoport
Michael Rapoport has a rare talent for finding the financial details that make a big difference. With Blockbusters and Netflix, it was the separate ways they accounted for DVDs. With Google, it was the tax bite that was less taxing than advertised. In the Alcatel-Lucent merger, he showed how Alcatel was worth twice as much. One fact that elevated Michael’s work in the eyes of the judges: They covered some of the same stories themselves, and they still learned a lot from him.
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David Callaway of MarketWatch - Download PDF
Judges Comments
David Callaway
David Callaway brings an urgency to real-time column-writing that sets his work apart. Hours after Ken Lay’s unexpected death, he wrote about the scorned businessman with insight, perspective and compassion. David’s ambition alone vaults him to the top of the class. He also gets bonus points for sticking to the right length for a column. And when he defended the leakers in the Hewlett-Packard spy scandal, his passion was contagious. “I could work for this guy,” said one judge.
Judges - Column: Real Time
Mitchell Schnurman - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Vindu Goel - San Jose Murcury News
David Loenhardt - The New York Times
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