Virginia Business wins national journalism awards

Virginia Business won two national journalism awards Wednesday during The Alliance of Area Business Publishers’ (AABP) 2021 Editorial Excellence Awards ceremony.

Virginia Business Publisher Bernie Niemeier placed gold in the Commentary category for his monthly OurView column. His winning columns included a July 2020 column, “It’s time to speak up,” which exhorted the business community to stand up against systemic racism and inequality. The other winning columns penned by Niemeier were a May/June 2020 piece about the need for government to regulate business and a September 2020 column about why federal antitrust legislation should be updated in light of Big Tech.

“This publisher doesn’t shout, but offers reasoned, thoughtful explanations for his viewpoints, taking the side of his community as a whole, not of any particular faction,” the judges said in their remarks for Niemeier’s gold award.

Virginia Business also received a silver award for Best Ancillary Publication category for the magazine’s 2020 Hampton Roads Business guide, overseen by Deputy Editor Kate Andrews.

Praising the special annual publication, the judges wrote, “Strong, efficient tables and graphics present facts in an accessible way and well-edited photographs enhance the content. Stories offer fascinating information about local business topics and about the community overall.”

The awards were judged by faculty members from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. The awards ceremony was held virtually as part of the AABP’s three-day annual conference.

Founded in 1979, AABP is a Norwalk, Connecticut-based nonprofit organization representing 70 regional and local business publications in the United States, Canada, Australia and Puerto Rico, with a combined circulation of more than 1.2 million business professionals.