Religious were well-represented in the winner’s circle of the Australasian Catholic Press Association awards with the Sisters of the Good Samaritan’s e-publication, The Good Oil, taking out the top award for overall excellence and other honours going to publications from the Marists, Jesuits, Redemptorists, and Columbans.
The ACPA awards were held in Bathurst last month and guest speaker at the awards dinner was Annie Carrett, former ACPA President and now Director for the Office of the Archbishop of Melbourne.
In selecting The Good Oil as the winner of the Bishop Philip Kennedy Memorial Award for Overall Excellence in a Catholic Publication, the judges said the publication was a stand-out.
Bishop Michael McKenna of Bathurst presents Nichol Plumbe of The Good Oil with the Bishop Philip Kennedy Award for Overall Excellence at the Australasian Catholic Press Association awards in Bathurst.
“The Good Oil stood out not only among other online publication entries, but also the print winners – as deserving as they were,” the citation said.
“This publication is true to its mission of aiming to ‘nourish the spirit, stimulate thinking and encourage reflection and dialogue about contemporary issues from a Good Samaritan perspective’.
“It is a powerful voice for a forward-looking vision for the Church. Not beholden to hierarchical constraints, it is forthright in its opinions and in the van of social justice campaigning. The site is well-designed, easy to navigate, with a good array of news, features, opinion and reflection.”
The Good Oil also won the Best Online Publication and the runner-up was Eureka Street, a publication of Jesuit Communications.
Winner of Best Print Magazine was Marist Messenger from New Zealand and Highly Commended in that category was The Majellan, a publication of the Australian Redemptorists. Marist Messenger also won Best Original Photograph and Best Headline
The Good Oil picked up awards in a range of other categories as did the Jesuits who also won the category for Best Magazine Front Cover with Madonna magazine and picked up some awards for its Australian Catholics publication.
The award for Best Editorial went to the Redemptorists’ Fr Robert McCulloch in The Far East.