Ward's won four awards in the 2009 American Society of Business Publication Editors' annual editorial excellence contest.
Steve Finlay, editor of Ward's Dealer Business magazine, won an editorial-writing national Gold award for “The Dealer Made Me Do It!” and “Auto Industry's Problem Child.” The editorials were about auto financing woes and auto-leasing curtailments, respectively.
Finlay also won a column-writing national Bronze award for “The Hummer Summer of 2002” on the plunging popularity of Hummer SUVs and “Dizzy from Cliff-Diving Charts” on the plunging economy. Last year, Finlay won an ASBPE national Gold award in column writing.
Barbara McClellan, editor of WardsAuto.com, won a Gold award in ASBPE's Midwest-South regional in the best technical-article competition for a cover story “Food vs. Fuel: Rough Road Ahead for Biofuels,” examining the global debate over using food crops to power vehicles.
Drew Winter, editor-in-chief of Wards AutoWorld, captured a Midwest-South Silver award for “Let's Avoid Vehicular Communism” an editorial about government pressure on auto makers to build small cars, despite their limited popularity in the U.S.
