The Age has been named best newspaper in its class in the Pacific region, winning the coveted Newspaper of the Year award at the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers' Association awards. The prestigious accolade was announced at a Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association awards ceremony in Sydney on Thursday night. The Age was shortlisted against nine of the region's best daily newspapers with circulation of more than 90,000, and competing against entries from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong.
The judges said: ''Outstanding journalism all year by The Age. A real leader. From its powerful election coverage to WikiLeaks exposes, [and] its approach to coverage of natural disasters in Queensland, Victoria, New Zealand and Japan … There was so much to like and applaud about their efforts …''The Age presents as an excellent all-round package which clearly respects its traditional medium while embracing the storytelling opportunities that digital platforms bring.''Another judge wrote that The Age is ''a newspaper which repeatedly demonstrates that its reputation for quality journalism and investigative reporting is well placed, using research, technology and innovation in an attempt to engage its readers''.
Editor-in-chief Paul Ramadge said on accepting the award: ''This award is a tribute to all of the staff at The Age, who have demonstrated an extraordinary passion to break news, to mount investigations in the national interest, to launch an iPad app that is getting world best reviews, to relaunch The Saturday Age to make it more relevant to its core audience in Victoria, and to go about journalism without fear or favour.''
Don Churchill, chief executive and publisher, Melbourne Publishing, said:
''Being told by others that our product is excellent is a huge fillip to our self-esteem, and confirms that, even in the face of unprecedented changes in the newspaper world, we're getting a lot right. This year, The Age set out to achieve some major goals: to break more news, to increase the number of nationally significant investigations, to relaunch our flagship Saturday Age, and to launch our own iPad app, which has become a world-class product. Our staff have come together to achieve these goals, and have also excelled in so many other wonderful ways.''
The Christchurch newspaper The Press collected the Newspaper of the Year award in the 25,000 to 90,000 circulation category. Despite damage to its headquarters, the Fairfax-owned daily produced home-delivered copies of the paper the morning after February's earthquake.