JOHANNESBURG – Well-known actor Will Smith once said, “It’s really beautiful. It feels like God visits everywhere else, but lives in Africa.” On Thursday night the annual Caxton Excellence Awards not only celebrated excellence in the company, but also the wonderful African content with its rich mix of race, colour, language and music.
The Jo’burg Theatre was packed to the brim with representatives of more than 130 of Caxton’s community newspapers countrywide, eager for an opportunity to win one of the awards for outstanding performance during 2014. The CEO of Caxton community newspapers, Mr Bruce Sturgeon, said, “The company had morphed decisively from local newspapers into multimedia” and the community websites were ready to became the ‘daily fix’ of each community.”
The “Amazingly African” theme seemed to set the trend for the Lowveld Media group that had an amazing evening, winning one award after the other. The coveted Journalist of the Year award was won by Lowvelder‘s news editor, Nicolene Smalman, who also received a R30 000-prize for her achievement. Smalman’s portfolio was dominated by her reporting about the chaos at Rob Ferreira Hospital and it was apt that she dedicated it to the patients who had suffered under the poor service of this establishment.
Lowvelder won the category for Best Sold Newspaper while Get it Lowveld shared the trophy as best Get it with Northern Johannesburg. New to the game but already setting the trend, was Johanri Coetzee who won the Best Upcoming Journalist category while Stefan de Villiers received a highly commended. Marketing manager of the company, Linda Pieters, won the Best Promotion of a Newspaper award.
Lowvelder‘s online site was named the best in the group while the team under guidance of Aliche Bezuidenhout, also won a highly commended as Best Multi-media Storyteller. Autodealer‘s Matthys Ferreira received an award for Best Regular Pull-out Supplement while Chantel Olivier, Colletha Epstein, Wessel Cöhrs, Martel Weweje, Deléne van Straten, Ruan Visser and Leatitia van Rooyen won the category Best Idea.
This year the advertising and graphic design teams dominated many of their categories. Deléne van Straten won the Best Written and Designed Medium-sized Magazine ad, Roché Esterhuizen and her team won the Best Minor Ad Feature and were also a finalist in the Best Major Ad Feature category. Annaline Lindeque’s “Who’s who” supplement as well as Matthys Ferreira’s Scholar Choice Awards were both finalists in this category.
Chantel Olivier won the Best Written Medium Ad and was also a finalist in the Best Written Large-sized Ad category. Ciska Kay was a finalist in the Best Get it journalist category while Gayle Davies-Webb received a highly commended. Mark Kinnear received a highly commended for his headline writing while the editor of Steelburger/Lydenburg News, Pat Engelbrecht, was a finalist in the Free Newspaper category. Receptionist Florence Haywood received a highly commended award as Switchboard Operator of the Year.
Group editor, Irma Green said, “We are humbled by our achievements. This company is all about teamwork. Not one person’s contribution is insignificant or without purpose and when it all comes together, we create magic. We remain committed to serve our readers and advertisers even in tough economic times.”
