SBT wins national award
Meyer named president of business press organization
Small Business Times has won a national award for editorial excellence for the newspaper’s coverage of the Pabst City redevelopment project in Milwaukee.
SBT received the gold award for "best news scoop" by a small tabloid newspaper in the Association of Area Business Publications (AABP) 2003 Editorial Excellence Awards program.
The AABP awards were presented July 12 at the organization’s three-day annual summer conference in Baltimore.
The award for SBT’s Sept. 27, 2002 report on details of the proposed redevelopment of the former Pabst Brewery in downtown Milwaukee, as reported by Steve Jagler, SBT executive editor.
The report detailed the scope of the proposed $300 million Pabst City project. The news coverage also explained how now-former Milwaukee Bucks Coach George Karl played a key role in bringing the development partners together for the project.
In addition, the report included "Anatomy of a deal," an account that explained how Erin Broome-Shelton, former executive director of Karl’s nonprofit Friends of Hoop organization, moved behind the scenes as a catalyst for the project.
Karl has since announced he is considering another site for his Friends of Hoop Center, but the Pabst City project continues to attract national interest from prospective tenants for the Milwaukee site.
The Pabst City project’s partners include Wispark LLC, the real estate development arm of Wisconsin Energy Corp., Milwaukee. The SBT report was compiled, even though key Wispark officials attempted to prevent the disclosure of information related to the project.
"Despite the fact that development and city officials had been ultra-secretive about plans, Jagler scooped local media on the fact that Karl’s Friends of Hoop Center will be a key part of a new retail complex that would revitalize the center city," the award contest’s judges stated. "Especially notable is his ‘Anatomy of a deal,’ a blow-by-blow recounting of how the deal came together. Jagler’s piece was hailed by a local development executive, who said insiders wondered for weeks how Small Business Times collected its information. An outstanding example of relentless searching for sources."
"The annual AABP competition is steep with editorial excellence. To win a national award of this magnitude reflects our publication’s mission of providing exclusive, informative and useful editorial content for our readers," said Dan Meyer, publisher of Small Business Times.
At the convention it was also announced that Meyer has been named president of the AABP, which includes 80 independent business publications throughout North America and in Australia. Meyer previously served as vice president of AABP. He succeeds Mark Dodosh, editor of Crain’s Cleveland Business, as the organization’s president.
July 25, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
