Hawke’s Bay Today wins Newspaper of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards

Hawke’s Bay Today has won Voyager Newspaper of the Year for the coverage it provided for its community during Cyclone Gabrielle.

The win – as well as being named Regional Newspaper of the Year – is a rare example of a regional newspaper taking out the coveted prize on New Zealand media’s biggest night of celebration.

The win at Shed 10 in Auckland on Friday night complements Hawke’s Bay Today’s earlier Inma Global Media Award for its free edition in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone. The paper won ‘best use of print’ at a ceremony in London in April.

NZME’s The Weekend Herald won the Voyager Media Awards’ Weekly Newspaper of the Year, and NZ Herald won Metropolitan Newspaper of the Year.

In what was an extremely challenging year for the Hawke’s Bay community with extensive flooding causing widespread destruction, Voyager Media Awards judges Jim Tully and Jonathan Milne noted that Hawke’s Bay Today’s sustained and comprehensive coverage in the most challenging circumstances was “an exemplar of a newspaper serving its community when it mattered most”.

In judging the Voyager Newspaper of the Year gong, Milne, Tully and fellow judge Jane Wrightson unanimously agreed Hawke’s Bay Today’s response to Cyclone Gabrielle was an “extraordinary effort in extraordinary times” and proved the difference between the papers.

“The paper wisely used the resources of the NZME group to assist its local team, who reported without fear … calmly providing verified, localised information amid the chaos.”

NZME Chief Content Officer Murray Kirkness said he was hugely proud of the entire team, and in particular, the Hawke’s Bay Today team.

“Their dedication to sharing local stories and keeping their community informed, even though many of them were personally impacted by the flooding, was nothing short of remarkable.”

Hawke’s Bay Today editor Chris Hyde said everyone from the paper’s journalists, to its delivery team, had stepped up when it mattered most.

The entry had also highlighted the continued efforts of the team to get answers from officials months down the track.

The last time the paper won a Voyager Media Award was in 2018, when it took out the ‘Best Front Page’ category for its coverage of the Havelock North water crisis.

Hyde said Friday’s result was an emotional one for him and reporter Mitchell Hageman, who were present at Shed 10 in Auckland, as well as the rest of the editorial team watching on a livestream back in Hawke’s Bay.

Hageman, who started working for Hawke’s Bay Today just a few weeks before the cyclone hit, was named joint runner-up in the Best Up and Coming journalist category.

Judges Rev. Frank Ritchie and Linda Sanders noted his entry was of an “extremely high standard”, highlighting engaging stories that were important in their local context.

He had demonstrated strong capability in writing, and working with necessary contacts over time to deepen his stories, they said.