The Canadian chapter of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing announced the list of finalists for the Fifth Annual Best in Business Awards competition, recognizing outstanding business reporting published in 2018.
For this year’s contest, the number of categories expanded to 15, including beat reporting, investigative, commentary, trade article, editorial newsletter and scoop, and the finalists represent the most diverse array of Canadian publications yet.
The winners will be announced at the Best in Business Awards reception on April 17 at Baro in Toronto.
The finalists for SABEW Canada’s 5th Annual Best in Business are:
Audio or visual storytelling
- Pot supply (The Globe and Mail)
- No strings attached (HuffPost Canada)
- WTFinance video series (MoneySense)
Beat reporting
- David George-Cosh on cannabis (BNN Bloomberg)
- Janet McFarland on real estate (The Globe and Mail)
- Naomi Powell on trade (Financial Post)
Breaking news
- NAFTA coverage by Adrian Morrow, Robert Fife, Stephanie Nolen, Barrie McKenna, Eric Atkins, James Bradshaw, Andrew Willis, Tim Kiladze, David Parkinson, Josh O’Kane, Sean Silcoff, Susan Krashinsky Robertson, Rob Carrick, John Ibbitson and Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail)
- USMCA coverage by Kevin Carmichael, Tom Blackwell, Naomi Powell, James McLeod and Emily Jackson (Financial Post)
- NAFTA coverage by Josh Wingrove, Jennifer Jacobs, Kristine Owram, Eric Martin, Jen Skerritt and Lydia Mulvaney (Bloomberg)
Commentary
- Barrie McKenna (The Globe and Mail)
- Rita Trichur (Report on Business magazine)
- Kevin Carmichael (Financial Post)
Editorial newsletter
- Daily briefing (The Logic)
- Cannabis Professional (The Globe and Mail)
Feature (long-form)
- “Conquered by demons” by Kelly Cryderman and Jeffrey Jones (Report on Business magazine)
- “The city that had too much money” by Matt Campbell and Natalie Obiko Pearson (Bloomberg)
- “The unsolved murder of an unusual billionaire” by Matt Campbell (Bloomberg)
Feature (short-form)
- “How to lose big money in Toronto real estate” by Joe Castaldo (Maclean’s)
- “Toronto website Providr bets it can beat Facebook’s algorithm change” by Susan Krashinsky Robertson and Shane Dingman (The Globe and Mail)
- “Weed is serious business for Canada’s go-to pot banker” by Doug Alexander (Bloomberg)
Investigative
- “Inside the fall of Fortress” by Janet McFarland (The Globe and Mail)
- “The high cost of low corporate taxes” by Marco Chown Oved, Toby Heaps and Michael Yow (Corporate Knights)
- “Hustle in the oil patch” by Jeffrey Jones, Jeff Lewis, Renata D’Aliesio and Chen Wang (The Globe and Mail)
Package
- “No strings attached” (HuffPost Canada)
- Innovation (Financial Post)
- #MeToo (Canadian Press)
Personal finance and investing
- “The Year of Fear” by Bryan Borzykowski, Joe Castaldo and John Daly (Report on Business magazine)
- Mutual funds by Rob Carrick (The Globe and Mail)
- “Go out on top” by Frances Bula (BCBusiness)
Profile
- “Darren Entwistle’s long goodbye” by Christine Dobby (Report on Business magazine)
- “The Decider” by Luc Rinaldi (Pivot)
- “The Instigator” by Katie Lamb and Joanna Pachner (Report on Business magazine)
Scoop
- “Oil-sands outage upends global oil market, overshadowing OPEC” by Robert Tuttle and Kevin Orland (Bloomberg)
- “Coca-Cola’s cannabis drink deal with Aurora” by David George-Cosh (BNN Bloomberg)
- “How the government could net $200 billion selling off airports, major highways, utilities and Canada Post” by Zane Schwartz (The Logic)
Trade article
- “Selling out” by Tristan Bronca (The Medical Post)
- “In the dark” by Daniel Fish (Precedent)
- “Help your client prepare a will” by Michelle Schriver (Advisor’s Edge)
The first-ever award for Best Young Journalist goes to Zane Schwartz of The Logic. As the 2017 Michelle Lang Fellow in journalism at the National Post and Calgary Herald, he created the first searchable database of more than five million political donations in every province and territory—a project that won him a Data Journalism Award from the Global Editors Network in 2018. He helped modernize Maclean’s 25-year-old university rankings system, a project that saw him hire and manage 23 freelancers to work on a 400,000-point database. He has been with The Logic since Day 1, where he has had a hand in everything from design to hiring new staff to editing investigations on Canada’s innovation economy. As a reporter, he has consistently broken national news, including Amazon lobbying governments across Canada for billions in contracts after shortlisting Toronto for its HQ2 to revealing the government’s private assessment that there’s no downside to letting an American telecom come north.
Our inaugural Outstanding Achievement Award goes to the Financial Post’s Claudia Cattaneo, who retired in May 2018. As FP editor Nicole MacAdam put it in her nomination letter: “Claudia has been one of the most influential voices in Western Canada for nearly three decades, through bust, boom and bust. She is one of those rare journalists who earned the respect of both her peers and the energy industry due to her thorough, balanced reporting and deep understanding of the issues that matter to Albertans. But it wasn’t just her ability to break news that made her a must-read; it was her ability to bring context and analysis to these stories. Her columns suffered no fools and offered a clear-eyed view that often punctured the Ottawa bubble. At the same time, she was quick to criticize the oil patch for its high-profile problems, such as corporate governance and handling of the environment file. Bureau reporters who work from home can often be isolated, but Claudia was the ultimate colleague, taking junior reporters under her wing, meeting her Calgary colleagues weekly to discuss story ideas, participating in weekly features pitch meetings by phone, generously giving of her time to all who asked. Claudia was an editor’s dream right till the day she retired in May, 2018: Deeply experienced but with the keenness of a rookie ready for the day—pitching something nearly every day; unflinching reporting, but with a delightful turn of phrase; blunt in her critique but with an acute sense of fairness.”
