Hawke's Bay Today photographers Warren Buckland and Paul Taylor recall some of the events they covered as Cyclone Gabrielle slammed into the region.
Hawke’s Bay Today has celebrated its 25th year by being named Newspaper of the Year at the national 2024 Voyager Media Awards for the coverage it provided its community during Cyclone Gabrielle.
The win - it was also named Regional Newspaper of the Year - is a rare example of a regional newspaper taking out the coveted prize on New Zealand media’s biggest night of celebration.
The triumph at the annual media awards at Shed 10 in Auckland on Friday night complements Hawke’s Bay Today’s earlier Inma Global Media Award for its free edition in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone. The paper won the Best Use of Print category at a ceremony in London in April.
Hawke's Bay Today's special free edition after Cyclone Gabrielle.
First-year Hawke’s Bay Today reporter Mitchell Hageman, who had been with the newspaper for just a few weeks when mid-February cyclone happened, was one of two runners-up in the Best Up-and-Coming Journalist category, which was won by Ella Stewart of Radio New Zealand.
Established with a 1999 merger of the century-old Napier daily the Daily Telegraph and the Hastings-based Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune, the NZME publication Hawke’s Bay Today was in 2010 named Newspaper of the Year for publications with a circulation under 30,000, in a success which applauded coverage of the May 2009 shooting of three long-serving Napier police officers, including the death of Senior Constable Len Snee, otherwise known as the Napier Siege.
The last time the paper won a Voyager award was in 2018, when it took out the Best Front Page category for its coverage of the Havelock North water crisis.
Among other awards on Friday, NZME’s Weekend Herald won the Voyager for Weekly Newspaper of the Year, and the NZ Herald won Metropolitan Newspaper of the Year.
In what was an extremely challenging year for the Hawke’s Bay community, with extensive flooding causing widespread destruction, Voyager Media Awards judges Jim Tully and Jonathan Milne said Hawke’s Bay Today’s sustained and comprehensive coverage in the most challenging circumstances was “an exemplar of a newspaper serving its community when it mattered most”.
In judging the Voyager Newspaper of the Year gong, Milne, Tully and fellow judge Jane Wrightson unanimously agreed Hawke’s Bay Today’s response to Cyclone Gabrielle was an “extraordinary effort in extraordinary times” and proved the difference between the papers.
“The paper wisely used the resources of the NZME group to assist its local team, who reported without fear ... calmly providing verified, localised information amid the chaos.”
In respect of Hageman, Judges Reverend Frank Ritchie and Linda Sanders noted his entry was of an “extremely high standard”, highlighting engaging stories that were important in their local context.
He had demonstrated strong capability in writing and working with necessary contacts over time to deepen his stories, they said.
NZME chief content officer Murray Kirkness said he was hugely proud of the entire NZME team, and the Hawke’s Bay Today team in particular.
“Their dedication to sharing local stories and keeping their community informed, even though many of them were personally impacted by the flooding, was nothing short of remarkable.”
Hawke’s Bay Today editor Chris Hyde said everyone from the paper’s journalists to its delivery team had stepped up when it mattered most.
The entry had also highlighted the continued efforts of the team to get answers from officials months down the track.
Hawke's Bay Today editor Chris Hyde and reporter Mitchell Hageman with the paper's two Voyager awards.
Hyde said Friday’s result was an emotional one for himself and Hageman, who were present at Shed 10 in Auckland, as well as the rest of the editorial team, who were watching a live stream of the event back in Hawke’s Bay.
In other results, Stuff won the Digital News Provider of the Year award, The Post and Sunday Star Times editor Tracy Watkins won Editorial Leader of the Year, and Northland community paper Mahurangi Matters won Community Newspaper of the Year. For full results, go to to https://npa.co.nz/voyager-media-awards/2024-winners/
