The 2020 Australasian Religious Press Association’s Publication of the Year was presented on 30 October to the
2020 winner
NZ Catholic.
Highly commended –
Eternity
The Lutheran.
Report
NZ Catholic showed itself to be current, and adaptable. The paper has the courage to report honestly and accurately on sensitive issues affecting the community of faith (eg The Cardinal Pell case).
I note the re-working of the publication in light of the Christchurch mosque massacre, coverage of which was outstanding. In design, the paper is easy to read and makes good use of colourful photographs to balance what is a text intensive field of journalism.
NZ Catholic does an excellent job being catholic; covering all the dioceses, as well as international news. New Zealand has just been through an extremely exacting year or so, with the White Island tragedy, the events in Christchurch, and more recently Covid 19 lockdown, with two lockdowns in Auckland city.
The opportunities for supporting people of faith in their faith, are enormous under such circumstances, and my reading of the NZ Catholic suggests it does that exceptionally well. This is all the more praiseworthy because church publications, whatever denomination, are usually thinly resourced.
And the elephant in the room is the challenge of the digital. Should we dispense with the hard copy paper, and its associated costs, knowing that many readers are not expert users of the new technologies.
It is extremely pleasing to see the paper consistently, and effectively, managing difficult issues, such as those surrounding institutional responses to child abuse.
To read the Judges Comments - ARPA web site
https://www.arpa.news/awards2020