WILMINGTON – Delaware Business Times won seven awards in the 2021 Maryland, Delaware, D.C. Press Association contest, including first-place awards in business and COVID-19 coverage for papers of its size.
The latest award wins for DBT come after the paper won 12 awards in the Delaware Press Association’s 2021 contest last month.
Both editor Jacob Owens and reporter Katie Tabeling earned awards in the larger MDDC contest. All of its 2021 awards came in Category F with papers of a similar size circulation, which includes the Baltimore Business Journal, among other competitors.
“Our editorial and design teams have worked tirelessly over the past year raising the bar on the quality and quantity of our writing, reporting and layout. Readers have noticed and so too have our peers,” said Michael Reath, publisher of Delaware Business Times. “We greatly appreciate the recognition for our coverage of Delaware’s business community, and I congratulate our entire team for their outstanding work. I couldn’t be prouder of their efforts.”
Owens won a first-place award for business reporting for his July cover story, “How Project Dragonfly could shape Delaware,” which detailed the major WuXi STA Pharmaceutical project that chose to locate in Middletown.
Meanwhile, Tabeling won a first-place award for reporting in this year’s changing topical category, which focused on how the coronavirus pandemic impacted local communities. Her December cover story, “Delaware’s child care crisis worsens ‘she-cession’,” examined the state of Delaware’s child care industry and how the lack of available providers has led women to leave the workforce.
DBT won a pair of second-place awards for feature writing for two cover stories last year.
Owens won for a profile feature story for his September cover story “Dream Come True,” which told the story of entrepreneur Earl Cooper and his startup Eastside Golf. Meanwhile Tabeling for a non-profile feature story for her May 2021 cover story, “Corporate Delaware addresses its diversity gap,” that looked at leadership at some of Delaware’s largest companies and what they were doing to advance diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Tabeling also won three additional second-place awards in local government, medical/science and growth and land use reporting for her stories “Municipalities seek hotel taxes as debate over spoils brews,” which dealt with the varying status of hotel taxes across the state; “As Sussex grays, health care arms race heats up,” which examined the growth of health care systems in Sussex County; and “ Reimaging Rehoboth,” which looked at how the loss of city icon businesses may change Rehoboth Beach, respectively.
Finally, Owens received a second-place award in editorial writing for his editorial “Delaware can, and should, lead in green tech industry,” which argued for greater emphasis on investments in next-generation technology.
