IBJ captures two journalism awards in annual Best in Business competition

Indianapolis Business Journal received two international journalism awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing in the organization’s annual Best of Business competition, SABEW announced Tuesday.

IBJ won top honors in the Audio award category for its weekly IBJ Podcast, topping the runner-up Wall Street Journal in a category open to all news organizations.

The award gave individual recognition to IBJ News Editor and podcast anchor Mason King and Managing Editor and podcast editor Lesley Weidenbener.

IBJ’s “One City, Worlds Apart” series also took the top prize in the Economics award category for small publications. Reporter Hayleigh Colombo and graphic designer Jill Doyle received individual recognition for the series.

SABEW's annual Best in Business competition recognizes outstanding business journalism. This year, judges selected winners from 946 entries from news organizations across all platforms, including from international, national and regional news outlets and specialized business publications.

Judges said they “were uniformly impressed” with the IBJ Podcast and praised “the anchor’s presentation, the quality and pacing of the production and especially the engaging nature of the content.”

The Wall Street Journal’s “The Next Battlefield” podcast received honorable mention in the category.

Judges called IBJ’s “One City, Worlds Apart” a “compelling series (that) explores how the city has splintered economically and how the fortunes of most residents have deteriorated.”

“The team mined deep pockets of data and converted what could have been dry statistics into graphics, charts, maps and graphs that helped to tell a strong story about how Indianapolis has become two cities at risk of growing further apart,” the judges wrote. “Vivid anecdotes from those experiencing that divide brought the story to life and put a face on this tale of worsening economic inequality.”

SABEW was known as Society for American Business Editing and Writing until changing its name last year to recognize its effort to embrace a global focus on business journalism. The society, based at Arizona State University, has 3,400 members from North America and several countries.