Alaska Business Earns Press Club Awards
Alaska Business
Among the honors bestowed by the Alaska Press Club at its annual conference over the weekend, this publication was recognized for its graphic design. At the ceremony April 20 for work done in 2023, Alaska Business earned 1st place in Best Page Layout for an article in the June issue.
Dollar Design
For the article “Carbon Credits, Offsets, and Sequestration: Four things to know” written by attorney Chris Slottee, art director Monica Sterchi-Lowman devised a bold yet simple opening image of a dollar sign superimposed over a forest to illustrate this otherwise abstract concept. The rest of the page layout allowed the text to speak for itself.
In the same category, Alaska Business also placed 3rd for a tourist map of Utqiagvik printed in the September 2023 issue. For her design of the map, Patricia “PJ” Morales previously earned a Silver prize from the Alaska chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts last November.
The magazine’s art department took 3rd place in two other categories. For magazine cover, the Alaska Press Club recognized the July 2023 illustration by artist Lance Lekander. First place in the category went to the October 2023 cover of Alaska magazine by Jennifer Smith and Steven Merritt. And Katie Basile was a runner-up for Best Picture Story with her photo essay about Stan’s Barbershop in Bethel, published in the April 2023 issue. Anchorage Daily News won the category with Emily Mesner’s photos of dipnetting on the Kenai River.
Current Issue
May 2024
Managing editor Tasha Anderson earned 3rd place in the Best Magazine Feature category for “Content Contest,” an unusual experiment in the June 2023 issue. She assigned two freelance authors to write short articles about travel and tourism, and she used the same prompt to generate text using ChatGPT. The resulting four articles, which were likewise illustrated with human versus machine-generated imagery, enabled readers to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of large-language model content generators. A human artist, Art Wolfe, earned Alaska magazine first place with a feature by Emily Mount called “Art Wolfe, Painter of Light: A photographer’s journey from student to master.”
Alaska Business
Editor and staff writer Scott Rhode earned 2nd place in three categories. His article “Theater Upheaval” from July 2023 was a runner-up for Best Arts Reporting to “Pioneer Bar celebrates 70 years with party” by Nakeshia Diop of the Chilkat Valley News. “Tasting Alaska” from October 2023 about local flavoring manufacturers was a contender for Best Food Reporting, won by the “Feeding the Last Frontier” series on the “Sun and Soil” podcast by C.C. Clark and Noah Spickelmier in Pasadena, California. And after winning Best Headline Writing last year, Rhode was outpaced this year by Robert Woolsey at KCAW Radio with “Sitka student builds a telecaster, shredding our old ideas about high school shop class.”
Alaska Business
The Alaska Press Club also recognized a sister publication of Alaska Business, The Alaska Contractor, printed quarterly for the Associated General Contractors of Alaska. That group’s executive director, Alicia Amberg, placed 3rd for the Suzan Nightingale Award for Best Columnist. Hank Nuwer won the category with writing for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. A Contractor article by Kevin Klott about Goldbelt transporting an Alpine tram to Juneau placed 2nd for Best Short Feature, a category won by Garland Kennedy and James Poulson of the Daily Sitka Sentinel for “Family Dog Stella Comes in from the Cold.”
The ceremony saw the debut of a new Alaska Press Club award for journalistic leadership named in honor of the late Howard Weaver, a longtime editor of the Anchorage Daily News. That award was given to Maria Downey, who recently retired after forty-three years as a TV news anchor at KTUU. Downey accepted via prerecorded video from Florida.
Making History
The track of oil and gas development in Alaska shows the footprints of bold companies and hard-working individuals who shaped the industry in the past and continue to innovate today. The May 2024 issue of Alaska Business explores that history while looking forward to new product development, the energy transition for the fishing fleet, and the ethics of AI tools in business.