SABEW Canada names Best in Business winners

The Canadian chapter of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing announced the winners of the 10th annual Best In Business Canada Awards on Monday night at an event in Toronto.

The Globe and Mail led all outlets, outdoing their first-place showing last year with six gold awards and five silvers, which include wins for Report on Business Magazine. Bloomberg News was honored with two golds and two silvers, while the Toronto Star earned three gold prizes. The Logic earned two gold and one silver, while CBC took home two silver awards.

Other winners included BetaKit, Canadian Press, Financial Post and Wealthsimple Media.

Karen Howlett, who retired from The Globe and Mail earlier this year after four decades in journalism, earned the Outstanding Achievement award. A versatile reporter who spent the most recent years of her career in investigations, Karen’s business-reporting portfolio is storied, including coverage of the collapse of Canadian trust companies in the early 1990s, and a Michener Award for meritorious public-service journalism for her work with colleagues on the practice of “juicing” stock and mutual-fund prices.

Judges commented: “With the many accolades throughout her career, it’s easy to see that Karen’s work is framed with high-quality journalism. She asks the difficult questions, pushes for the uncomfortable stories and puts journalism in Canada right where it should be, especially now, covering the topics and news that people need to know about – no matter whether you’re in the C-suite or a retail investor.” Last year’s Outstanding Achievement winner, Garry Marr of CoStar News, presented Karen’s award.

BetaKit reporter Josh Scott received the Jeff Sanford Best Young Journalist award, named after Financial Post and Canadian Business journalist Jeff Sanford, who died in 2018. It is generously supported by Jeff’s family.

Of the decision to award Josh this year, judges said: “Josh Scott proved that he has the right mix of journalism skills and sticktoitiveness to become one of the country’s top reporters. In about four years in the industry, Josh, working with the more limited resources of a small publisher, has written more than 1,000 stories and has broken news, including on the popular Collision conference. It’s evident from the first few graphs of his pieces that he’s extremely well-researched, he’s cultivated numerous sources, isn’t afraid to ask the tough questions and knows how to advance a story.”

SABEW Canada’s Best in Business Awards are the only Canadian journalism awards dedicated exclusively to recognizing exemplary works of business journalism. The 10th annual edition honoured work published in the 2023 calendar year.

The awards are made possible thanks to the generous support of professional development sponsors Fidelity Investments Canada and Ivey Publishing.

Here’s the complete list of this year’s BIB Canada winners:

Beat Reporting
Gold: Rachelle Younglai – Real Estate, The Globe and Mail
Silver: Christopher Reynolds – Airlines, The Canadian Press
Honourable Mention: Niall McGee – Mining, The Globe and Mail

Breaking News Coverage
Gold: OSFI takes control of Silicon Valley Bank’s Canadian unit –
Stefanie Marotta, Sean Silcoff, James Bradshaw, Tim Kiladze, Andrew Willis, The Globe and Mail
Silver: Traynor Ridge meltdown –
Derek DeCloet, Esteban Duarte, Christine Dobby, Layan Odeh, Bloomberg News
Honourable Mention: Alberta’s moratorium on renewable energy projects – Emma Graney, Jeffrey Jones, Carrie Tait, The Globe and Mail

Commentary
Gold: Kevin Carmichael, The Logic
Silver: David Milstead, The Globe and Mail
Honourable Mention: Adam Radwanski – Climate policy and politics, The Globe and Mail

Editorial Newsletter
Gold: The Logic Briefing – The Logic newsroom, The Logic
Silver: TLDR – Ben Mathis-Lilley, Devin Gordon, Stacey Woods, Sarah Rieger, Ambrose Martos, Ciara Rickard, Clare Douglas, Sara Black McCulloch, Mohini Tailor, Matthew Karasz, Jared Sullivan, Peter Martin, Kat Angus, Devin Friedman, Wealthsimple Media
Honourable Mention: MoneyFit – Justin Dallaire, Lisa Hannam, Jaclyn Law, MoneySense

Feature – Long-form
Gold: “Chip Wilson’s race against time” – Ari Altstedter, Bloomberg News
Silver: “Indigenous economic reconciliation and The Ring of Fire” – Niall McGee, Fred Lum, The Globe and Mail
Honourable Mention: “Doom, Inc.” – Claire Brownell, The Logic

Feature – Short-form
Gold: “How fuel giant Parkland is adapting to a low-carbon world” – Jason Kirby, The Globe and Mail
Silver: “Canadian farmers dream of blockchain sheep” – David Reevely, The Logic
Honourable Mention: “Canopy Growth’s downsizing leaves Smiths Falls in limbo” – Vanmala Subramaniam, The Globe and Mail

General Excellence – Small Publication
BetaKit

Investigative
Gold: “Work forced” – Sara Mojtehedzadeh, Rachel Mendleson, The Toronto Star
Silver: “Canadian corporate accountability, human rights, and a failed watchdog” – Tavia Grant, The Globe and Mail
Honourable Mention: “A 12,000-barrel oil pipeline spill exposes years of lax oversight” – Robert Tuttle, Ari Natter, Bloomberg News

Multimedia
Gold: “AI deepfakes” – Joe Castaldo, Patrick Dell, Jeremy Agius, The Globe and Mail
Silver: “Concrete solutions” – Kyle Bakx, CBC News

Package
Gold: “This is what economic reconciliation looks like” – Susan Nerberg, Report on Business Magazine, The Globe and Mail
Silver: “Women lead here” – Deborah Aarts, Report on Business Magazine, The Globe and Mail
Honourable Mention: “Following the money in the fight against human trafficking” – Rita Trichur, The Globe and Mail

Personal Finance and Investing
Gold: “Short changed” – Tim Shufelt, Clare O’Hara, Irene Galea, The Globe and Mail
Silver: “The financial toll of Canada’s housing crisis” – Erica Alini, The Globe and Mail
Honourable Mention: “Saving for retirement” – David Aston, Toronto Star

Podcast
Gold: “Millennial Money” – Ghada Alsharif, Kevin Sexton, Andrea Varsany, Julia De
Silver: “Cost of Living” Season 5 – Paul Haavardsrud, Jennifer Keene, Danielle Nerman, Ellis Choe, Caroline Ferris, Tracy Johnson, CBC Radio
Laurentiis Johnston, Sean Pattendon, Toronto Star
Honourable Mention: “COMMONS: Monopoly” – Arshy Mann, Jordan Cornish, and Noor Azrieh, Canadaland

Profile
Gold: “Chip Wilson’s race against time” – Ari Altstedter, Bloomberg News
Silver: “The anti-monopoly man” – Jake Edmiston, Financial Post
Honourable Mention: “Pierre Fitzgibbon is on a mission to supercharge Quebec’s economy — rules be damned” – Martin Patriquin, The Logic

Scoop
Gold: “Toronto’s WNBA dream dead: The inside story of how the MLSE walked away” – Richard Warnica, Toronto Star
Silver: “Volkswagen” – Brian Platt, Bloomberg News
Honourable Mention: “Investigation into Sustainable Development Technology Canada” – Jeffrey Jones, The Globe and Mail

Jeff Sanford Best Young Journalist
Josh Scott, BetaKit

Outstanding Achievement
Karen Howlett, The Globe and Mail