Hawaii Business Wins 24 Awards

Hawaii Business Magazine won 24 awards this year for work published in 2023, including two that we’re especially proud of.

Contributing Writer LiAnne Yu’s story about CEO of the Year Ken Sakurai won the first place gold medal in the large publications category for best personality profile from the national Alliance of Area Business Publishers.

Photo: Aaron Yoshino

The judges wrote: “The writer weaves together personal details of the CEO along with industry trends to create an engaging story of the savvy innovation and team spirit that led to the company’s success. The piece reveals the story of a humble man who just ‘likes to build houses’ and covers his whole life – not just what he does at the office.”

Noelle Fujii-Oride’s in-depth report titled “What Happens When Private Equity Is Your Landlord” won first place in the prestigious investigative reporting category open to all media and presented by the Hawai‘i chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Photo: Getty Images; Photo illustration: Kelsey Ige

“This was a highly competitive category,” wrote the judges. “The winning entry is very well-produced and shines a light on a very important issue that affects nearly every American … showing the reader your journalistic work is so important.”

The same report also won third place from SPJ Hawaii for public service reporting.

Hawaii Business Magazine earned a total of 23 awards from SPJ Hawaii, only two fewer than the front-runner, Honolulu Civil Beat.

Those awards include:

• First place for business reporting in magazines for our extensive 2023 coverage of housing and real estate by Fujii-Oride and Contributing Writer Janis Magin Meierdiercks.

“Remarkable coverage of an issue that is affecting the entire state,” the judges wrote. “You looked at it from so many different perspectives. This is what great business journalism looks like.”

• First place for industry or trade reporting for our coverage of the tourism industry.
• First place in the profile category for Yu’s article on Ken Sakurai.
• Hawaii Business swept all three awards in two categories – data journalism and informational graphics – based on multiple reports published on female entrepreneurs, the BOSS Survey, 808 Poll and more.

“Each entry is a masterclass in delivering data in a digestible way,” wrote the judges in the data journalism category. “This was a very difficult category to judge, as each entry exceeded expectations of what data-driven journalism can be.”

• Managing Editor Cynthia Wessendorf won second place for overall body of work by a single writer and Fujii-Oride won third place.
• Wessendorf also won second place in health reporting for her story “Growing Up in an Age of Anxiety.” Contributing Writer Stuart Coleman won third place in the same category for his report “Cesspools Are Killing Our Coral – But It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way.”
• Coleman’s cesspools article also won second place for science reporting; third place went to Staff Writer Ryann Noelani Coules for her story “Tech Boosts Hawai‘i Ag.”

Our designers and illustrators won a total of four awards: second place awards for overall page design and magazine cover – the latter one for Kelsey Ige’s February cover illustrating the private equity landlords story. Ige also won third place for a single feature design for her work on a story headlined “The Goal: Tourism That Regenerates Hawai‘i, Not Degrades It.” And third place in editorial cartoon/ illustration went to freelancer Kelsie Dayna for her “Hawai‘i’s Best Places to Work” artwork.

Illustration: Kelsie Dayna

Second place in explanatory journalism went to Fujii-Oride for her report “Tensions Between Renters and Landlords.”

Illustration: Mallory Adams-Nakamura

“You examined a difficult issue and gave us perspectives from both sides. That’s so important and too often overlooked,” the judges wrote.

Finally, Hawaii Business won second place for its headlines. And while most of the awards bear the name of just one person, all of them are the result of a team effort. And I’m very proud of our team.