HDT Editor Whistler Wins Crain Award
Veteran journalist and five editors are finalists in Jesse H. Neal competition.
Deborah Whistler, editor of Heavy Duty Trucking magazine and a trucking journalist for more than a quarter of a century, has won the American Business Media's 2007 Crain Award – the highest career journalism honor among U.S. business media.
Only one Crain Award is given each year, with the competition judged by a panel of American Business Media journalists. The winner is selected for outstanding career contributions to the business press.
Whistler becomes the third Heavy Duty Trucking editor to win the Crain Award, (Executive Editor James Winsor won in 2000, and former Editorial Director, current President Doug Condra won in 1990) and only the third woman to win the prize in the nearly 40-year history of the award. The competition for this coveted award is among editors from hundreds of ABM member publications.
Whistler is also among six Heavy Duty Trucking editors to be a finalists in the 2007 Jesse H. Neal awards competition. Whistler, along with Senior Editor Patricia Smith, Washington Editor Oliver B. Patton, Senior Editor Deborah Lockridge, Senior Equipment Editor Tom Berg, and Technology Editor Jim Beach, will win either a Neal Award or Certificate for HDT's July Vital issue, "Security's New Era."
A former daily newspaper reporter and columnist, Whistler began her business-to-business career as a lead reporter/writer for Heavy Duty Trucking. She became copy editor in 1983, managing editor in 1985 and editor in 2000.
In 2001 she was named editorial director of all Newport media, which includes Heavy Duty Trucking and RoadStar magazines, truckinginfo.com (daily news online), e-RoadStar.com, Hotline newsletter and two digital magazines, HDT New Product News and IT Quarterly.
Her journalistic strength throughout her career has been to target key industry issues and produce blockbuster editorial features that help readers solve problems.
Such editorial enterprise has resulted in 21 Jesse H. Neal Awards (the Pulitzer Prize of business press), 12 Neal Certificates of Merit, and the Grand Neal Award (RoadStar, in 2001) for Whistler and her staff. She has personally won or shared in the Grand Neal, eight Neal Awards, six Certificates, 16 ASBPE Awards (for features, editorials, columns and cover photography), 15 Western Publishers Association Maggie Awards and several FOLIO: Gold Awards.
For years an advocate of improving trucking's public image, Whistler has served on the American Trucking Associations' image committee and the board of Trucker Buddy International (trucker members become pen pals with grade school classes.)
In 1997 she founded TruckerFest, honoring America's truck drivers with a big rig parade, a truck beauty contest, free steak dinners, a concert and fireworks in Reno, Nev. She also founded Truckers for Wildlife to support a national non-profit organization that rescues and rehabilitates wild animals that people have tried to domesticate. The first TruckerFest raised more than $80,000 for wildlife rescue and other charities, including Trucker Buddy.
Whistler currently serves on the board of directors and the scholarship committee of the Truckload Carriers Association.
Last year she was named to the founding board of directors of Women In Trucking, a group formed to support the careers of women in the predominantly male-dominated trucking industry.
Recommended by media trade associations and peers, and selected by Crain's BtoB Media Business magazine editors and reporters, Whistler was named the 2005 Top Innovative Editor of business magazines with up to $125 million annual revenue.
"Our annual innovator awards were created to honor those who have impacted our business in a truly innovative way over the past year, leading their publications in ways that all of us in the publishing business can learn from," said Bob Felsenthal, publisher of BtoB Business Media.
The Neal Awards and Crain honor will be recognized at a luncheon March 22 at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.
News continued...
