Nikkei Asia wins two SABEW Best in Business Awards

TOKYO -- Nikkei Asia has won two Best in Business Awards from the U.S. Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW), marking the third straight year it has taken home multiple honors in the annual competition.

SABEW, the world's largest and oldest organization of business and financial journalists, recognized Nikkei Asia on Thursday for its coverage in 2023 of issues ranging from the politics of water in Asia to the role of women in India's film industry.

Nikkei Asia's three-part series, "Asia's Age of Hydropolitics," written by Pak Yiu, Kiran Sharma, Sanskrita Bharadwaj, Faisal Mahmud and Lien Hoang, took the top prize for energy, sustainability and climate change reporting by a medium-size publication.

"The stories feature strong data, instructive interactives, and vivid writing," said the SABEW judges. "The examples of adaptation by communities already deeply affected by ramifications of climate change also provide a good look at potential solutions on the local level."

Jui Chakravorty, Surbhi Bhatia, Kiran Sharma and Sayan Chakraborty won for "Bollywood's gender revolution: Women are rewriting the rules," which received top honors for media and entertainment coverage by a medium-size or small organization.

The SABEW judges said the report's "extensive use of exclusive data backs up its thesis that women are slowly but markedly making progress in a country that counts as heroes male film stars. The journalists got access to key female actresses, directors, producers, writers, academics -- as well as some men -- who provide insightful comments about their experience and the overall dilemma -- and what is being done to implement changes."

The 29th annual Best in Business Awards attracted 1,103 entries from 181 news organizations, SABEW said.

Shin Nakayama, editor-in-chief of Tokyo-based Nikkei Asia, said, "Winning a prestigious journalism award like the SABEWs three years in a row shows the quality of our content continues to improve. The winning stories all feature unique, original work by our network of reporters in Asia, and this recognition is encouraging as we strive to bring the voice of Asia to the world."

The Financial Times, which is also a part of the Nikkei group, won two Best in Business awards for large news organizations and received an honorable mention in a third category.

The FT's multi-media report, "Inside North Korean oil smuggling," took top honors for innovation, while its collaboration with Pushkin Industries, "Hot Money: The New Narcos," won in the audio/podcast category. Joshua Oliver received an honorable mention for feature writing for his account of the final days of FTX.