Army comes highly commended

ARMY newspaper recently won a highly commended award in the non-daily free category at the Pacific Area Newspaper Association (PANPA) Newspaper of the Year awards at the Gold Coast.

Director of Defence Newspapers, Rod Horan, was on hand to accept the award.

More than 100 newspapers entered this year’s competition, entry involved newspapers displaying their best pages, which were then judged by a panel.

Competition was fierce in the non-daily free category, and Army came equal second with The Adelaide Review. Sydney’s Central won the category.

Judges said Army demonstrated a welcome revamp.

“It was bold in traditional Army colours and aimed at an internet-friendly readership of young servicemen and women,” judges said.

Former Editor David Sibley was deeply moved by the award.

“This award is a significant newspaper industry accolade, which is not given lightly,” he said.

“The fact that the category Army entered was the most hotly contested in the 2004 awards shows that the newspaper and its staff are producing a paper better than 90 per cent of similar commercial publications.”

Army had evolved very little in the past five years until last year, when Mr Sibley totally overhauled the paper. He realised that to reach Army’s audience, various layout tactics had to change.

To achieve the best result, Mr Sibley invested countless hours of study and layout application, observing current newspaper trends and noting the future direction of newspapers.

“On a personal level, this award is very gratifying for me as an Editor and shows that sometimes simply going with your gut instinct is the obvious soloution.

“But having the idea behind it is only half of the award – the other half are the fantastic reporters and production staff who put it all together at very short notice and then worked with me in honing the design.”

The Directorate of Defence Newspapers is a member of PANPA, the industry association representing newspapers in the Asia Pacific region.