Qantas awards recognize NZ's top papers

Hawke's Bay Today, one of the papers I visited in April, has been judged New Zealand's top daily newspaper of under 30,000 circulation for 2010. The Qantas Media Awards (sponsored by the Australian airline) were handed out in Auckland a week ago.

Today won on the strength of its coverage of a May 2009 police siege in Napier in which one police officer and the gunman were killed. That's consistent with past years, when coverage of a single breaking story led to a top Qantas award.

The judge in this category was Jim Tully, head of the graduate school of journalism at Canterbury University in Christchurch. He wrote:

Our provincial dailies have a clear focus on reflecting the diverse interests and aspirations of the communities they serve. The finalists all demonstrated that they consistently serve their communities well and seek to engage their readers in a variety of ways: by providing comprehensive coverage of high-impact stories; by initiating campaigns; and by fostering interaction primarily through their websites.

The other finalists in this category were the Rotorua Daily Post (the 2009 winner), and two South Island papers, the Marlborough Express of Blenheim and the Southland Times of Invercargill.

The New Zealand Herald - the country's largest daily with a circulation of 170,000 - won the award for papers of 30,000 or more subscribers, and its stablemate, the Herald on Sunday, was the top Sunday paper (beating two competitors). Here's a complete list of the winners.