For release 10/11/2010
Media contact: Mary Lu Abbott
MaryLuA@satwf.com
Afar Magazine, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle
Win Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition Honors
Leipzig, Germany ― Afar, a new magazine, and the venerable Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle win top honors as the best travel publications in North America in the 2010 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition.
Among other winners announced today, Outside magazine wins seven individual awards, Islands magazine, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times four and the New York Times, Afar and National Geographic Traveler three.
BudgetTravel.com wins gold for the best online travel journalism site.
Travel Journalist of the Year is Andrew McCarthy, who won the gold for his freelance writing in some of North America’s best travel magazines.
“Word by word, paragraph by paragraph, entry by entry, McCarthy earns the gold the old-fashioned way — by treating readers to excellent writing and poignant stories,” said the judge. Silver winner is Catharine Hamm, travel editor of the Los Angeles Times. The bronze goes to Gary Stoller, reporter at USA Today who also won gold for investigative journalism on airline maintenance failures.
Ben Mutzabaugh wins gold for the best travel blog, called Today in the Sky, at USAToday.com.
This is the 26th year of the annual Lowell Thomas competition, overseen by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. The awards, recognized as the most prestigious in the field, were announced in Leipzig, Germany, at the annual convention of the Society of American Travel Writers, the professional organization of travel journalists and communicators.
The competition, for work from spring 2009 to spring 2010, drew 1,161 entries. Judging was done by faculty at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
"The entries were a breath of fresh air," said Winston Cavin, coordinating judge at the university. "Unfazed by the economy, writers focused on budget-conscious family ideas along with the traditional fare of glitz and faraway places. Travel journalists became twice as productive, twice as clever, and their work as enjoyable as ever."
Afar, winner of the gold award as best travel magazine, is based in San Francisco. Afar began publishing in the summer of 2009. The magazine “presents a stunning mix of standing features (travel with a purpose, unusual places to stay) and stories on truly different topics (bog snorkeling in Wales?) from all over the world,” said the judge.
National Geographic Traveler gets the silver award among best travel magazines. Via wins the bronze. Midwest Living wins gold for best travel coverage in other magazines. Southern Living wins silver, Bon Appétit bronze. Slate wins gold awards for Cultural Tourism and Personal Comment articles.
The Washington Post’s gold is for best travel section in newspapers with circulation of 350,000 or more. The San Francisco Chronicle’s gold is for newspapers with less than 350,000 circulation.
In Special Packages/Projects, which recognizes in-depth coverage of a topic and emphasizes use of multiple, interactive media, the gold goes to Jill Schensul for “Namibia” in The Record and northjersey.com of Hackensack, N.J. The staff of Cruisecritic.com wins silver for “Oasis of the Seas Launch Party.” The Seattle Times staff wins bronze for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Vancouver guides/coverage, in print and online.
Among other gold winners: Audio broadcast by Joseph Rosendo for a Travelscope.net podcast; video by Patricia Conroy, Richard Bangs and John Givens for American Public Television; best travel book, Rick Steves, “Travel as a Political Act,” Nation Books; best guidebook, Andrew Mersmann, “Frommer’s 500 Places Where You Can Make a Difference,” John Wiley & Sons Canada.
The SATW Foundation distributes $20,750 to individual winners. The competition is open to all North American journalists. First-place gold winners in individual categories each receive $500. Silver and bronze winners are awarded $250 and $150, respectively. For the Grand Award, as Travel Journalist of the Year, McCarthy receives $1,500.
The awards are named for Lowell Thomas, acclaimed broadcast journalist, prolific author and world explorer during five decades in travel journalism.
A list of the winners and the judges’ comments are available on the Foundation Web site, www.satwfoundation.org, or from the Foundation administrator, Mary Lu Abbott, at MaryLuA@satwf.com. For information about the contest or the Foundation, visit the Web site. For information about SATW, visit the organization’s Web site, www.satw.org.
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