PC World Wins Two Journalism Awards
Coverage of Windows Vista and editor's column honored by business media organization.
PC World received three honors today at the 54th annual Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards, held in New York.
PC World won a Neal Award for best subject-related series of articles for its Windows Vista coverage and another for Editor in Chief Harry McCracken's Techlog column, which won in the best staff-written editorial or opinion category. In addition, McCracken was honored with the 2008 Timothy White Award for Editorial Integrity.
PC World's ongoing coverage of Windows Vista started as soon as the long-delayed operating system arrived. A detailed review and upgrade guide was followed by analysis of Vista's benefits and weaknesses. The PC World Test Center reported performance results of the first desktop PCs to run Vista, as well as the first laptops to run the new OS.
Soon, early Vista adopters began to report issues with compatibility and raised concerns about security. PC World responded with an analysis of unexpectedly strong user resistance to upgrading to Vista.
To make the content even more accessible and enjoyable, strong design, infographics, and photography accompanied all of the articles.
Techlog, written by McCracken, sets the editorial agenda for the magazine by holding technology companies to an uncompromisingly high standard. He kicked off PC World's Windows Vista coverage by detailing the new operating system's shortcomings. In May's column he criticized the unwillingness of Microsoft and Apple to let customers run virtualized operating systems. In June, McCracken urged the electronics and entertainment industries to agree on standards and enable wider sharing of media. And in December's column he said that Windows' copy protection is unacceptably intrusive, and that Microsoft must fix it or eliminate it.
This year the Neal competition drew 1045 entries.
Established in 1955, the Jesse H. Neal Awards are named after American Business Media's first managing director, who remained active in promoting business media throughout his life. Past Neal winners and finalists have tackled controversial topics such as corruption, kickbacks, and political conflicts of interest.
PC World Staff