A panel of industry experts judged UCLAN’s munchkin to be the best New Student Magazine at the event held at Vinopolis on October 13.
Separately, Roger Cummings of IPC Media was named as the recipient of the Felix Dennis New Publisher of the Year award as part of the evening’s PPA Professional Qualifications Graduation Ceremony.
As the winner of Magazine Academy’s New Student Magazine category, munchkin – a monthly title for young children about fun food and creative cooking – will be professionally printed by Polestar on paper supplied by UPM. It will be distributed by PTC to publishers across the UK.
The Magazine Academy judges looked not only at the magazine’s quality of news and feature writing, editing skills, design and presentation, but also at the quality of research underpinning the proposition and the team’s grasp of commercial reality.
(The picture shows the winning UCLAN team that produced munchkin (including course leader Cathy Darby) with PPA CEO Barry McIlheney (middle), James Povey of Polestar (left) and Terry Parry of UPM (right).)
Gill Hudson, editor in chief of Reader’s Digest, and chair of the PTC Editorial Training Consultants Committee, said: “Magazine Academy is a unique event that underscores one of our principal aims, which is to help talented new journalists onto the first rung of the industry ladder, and if there's ever a time that's been necessary, I think it's now."
In the other two Magazine Academy categories, the award for New Magazine Concept was won by City University, London for Ground and Cardiff University took the prize for New Digital Product Concept for the Re:new magazine website.
Magazine Academy also provided the platform for Barclays to award one graduate from the Magazine Academy shortlist the editorship for its 100voices print magazine and accompanying e-zine and website. The prize was won by Cardiff University's Angharad Jones, editor of Re:new magazine, who secured a six-month contract with the magazine’s publisher, Redwood.
The Magazine Academy event also incorporated the PPA Professional Qualifications Graduation Ceremony which congratulates publishing employees who have completed PPA’s industry-leading professional qualifications in the past year.
The ceremony concluded with the presentation of the Felix Dennis New Publisher of the Year award to Roger Cummings of IPC Media, who received a £5,000 prize personally donated by the Dennis Publishing founder.
Chairman of the PTC Nicholas Brett, who is also deputy managing director and editorial director at BBC Magazines, said: “We remain committed to promoting and rewarding excellence. Our strategy is still to work alongside publishers to drive up standards in training and development, making a difference to skills across the industry.”
The event partners for this year’s Magazine Academy are 100voices, Dovetail, Polestar and UPM.
