Coastwatch Magazine Nets Another Award

Coastwatch magazine, North Carolina Sea Grant’s flagship publication, has won a 2020 APEX Award of Excellence in print publications. The award is the sixth prominent honor for the print and online magazine in just the last two years.

The quarterly publication reaches a quickly growing audience that includes over 120,000 readers annually. Recent issues have offered signature features on climate change, seafood safety, and the Outer Albemarle Penninsula’s striking dark skies, as well as the seminal “Wingina, Wanchese and Manteo: A Lumbee Perspective on the Lost Colony,” and a retelling of Hurricane Floyd’s rising floodwaters through eyewitness accounts.

Communications Concepts, Inc. advises publishing and marketing professionals and presents the APEX Awards for Publication Excellence. This year, the competition received 1,183 entries.

Last year, the N.C. Association of Government Information Officers awarded Coastwatch “Best Print Publication,” after naming it runner-up in the same category in 2018. The magazine’s science editor, Julie Leibach, has earned NCAGIO’s “Best Feature” award in 2018 and 2019, with North Carolina Sea Grant extension specialist Sarah Spiegler also garnering second place recognition for her Coastwatch feature in 2019.

Editor Dave Shaw says Coastwatch benefits from a deep well of Sea Grant expertise and a long tradition of award-winning excellence.

“Coastwatch sits at the intersection of cutting-edge science and real-world solutions,” Shaw says. “As a product of the people and projects that drive North Carolina Sea Grant, we never suffer from a shortage of quality material. Thanks to Sea Grant’s team and resources, and an audience eager to read our stories, we’re reaching more and more people every year.”

Shaw says that for the last two decades, North Carolina Sea Grant’s communication director, Katie Mosher, has shepherded the magazine as it has grown, which has included leading it through its critical transition from a print-only periodical to a hybrid print-and-online publication.

“Coastwatch has been able to establish a massive online archive of free stories,” Shaw says. “Today, readers can search the magazine by issue, by subject, and by what’s most popular — and tens of thousands of people are accessing this content alone.”

To read the new Summer issue or browse the Coastwatch archives, visit: NCCoastwatch.org

Related: Read about North Carolina Sea Grant’s Lessons in Mariculture, which also received an APEX Award this year, and NC Coastal Landscaping: A Native Plant Guide, which won an APEX Award last year.

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