15th Asian Media Awards honor top publishers

Singapore Press Holdings, The New Straits Times of Malaysia and The South China Morning Post of Hong Kong were among the winners of the annual Asian Media Awards (AMA) presented yesterday at a gala ceremony in Manila by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-Ifra).

WAN-Ifra is the global organization of the world’s newspapers and news publishers representing more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and more than 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.

While The Star (Malaysia), Jawa Pos (Indonesia) Gulf News (UAE) and Muscat Press (Oman) also clinched several trophies, this year’s awards were marked by the achievements of first-time winners from Burma (The Myanmar Times), Pakistan (The Dawn and Jang) and South Korea (Kaya Media).

462 entries

The best in newspaper front page design was awarded to a cover about the haze from open burning in Sumatra and Kalimantan by Republika (Indonesia).

In its 15th edition, the WAN-Ifra Asian Media Awards gathered 462 entries from 19 countries in Asia and the Middle East, competing for excellence in printing quality, design, infographics, photography, editorial content, newspaper marketing and community service.

The best in print awards—part of the International Newspaper Color Quality Club competition and will be presented at the WAN-Ifra India conference in Calcutta later this year—were sponsored by manroland web systems for the 15th consecutive year.

Twenty judges from international media companies evaluated the AMA entries in the past months to select the 39 winners who were honored at Publish Asia’s gala dinner last night.

Among the judges were World Press Photo Award winners Bill Frakes and Ian Grarup, former National Geographic art director Juan Velasco, the Evening Standard’s managing editor, Doug Wills, and The Age’s editor in chief, Andrew Holden.

The full list of winners can be found at https://www.wan-ifra.org/microsites/asian-media-awards.

Philippine organizers

Back in Manila after nine years, Publish Asia is WAN-Ifra’s premier conference in the Asia-Pacific region and the Asian Media Awards gala dinner is one  of the highlights of the event.

Organized with the support of Philippine publishers Manila Bulletin, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star, Manila Times and Business Mirror, the dinner took place in historic Fort Santiago, built by the Spanish in the 16th century.

Publish Asia 2016 gathered 300 media executives from 24 countries, representing more than 80 leading Asian news companies.

It featured 30 Asian and international speakers, including Geoff Booth, national director of production and logistics at News Corporation Australia; Nic Dawes, chief content and editorial officer at HT Media; Simon Crerar, Buzzfeed Australia editor; Marc Lavine AFP editor in chief for Asia, and Shayne Currie, managing editor at the New Zealand Herald.