British Association of Rowing Journalists Awards 2008

Chip Davis, founder and editor of the American magazine Rowing News,
became the 2008 Journalist of the Year at the British Association of
Rowing Journalists awards dinner at the River & Rowing Museum in
Henley-on-Thames on Tuesday July 1.

Chris Dodd, chairman of BARJ, commended Davis for creating a magazine
with a fine stable of writers and photographers that sets standards
which others seek to emulate. Rowing News’s picture editor, Peter
Spurrier, himself a past winner of the award, accepted the Geoffrey
Page Memorial Quill on Davis’s behalf.

In a message from the Rowing news office in Hanover, New Hampshire, Davis said:  

“I am doubly honored to be recognized by this group. Like many rowers,
I literally grew up reading some of your accounts of rowing, so to have
Rowing News recognized by you as a group is an especially great honour.
We in the rowing community need to put competition among ourselves
aside in order to collectively compete against all of the other things
people can pay attention to besides rowing. No organization does that
better than BARJ. Many BARJ members have worked directly for the
newspaper and now magazine, and all of you have contributed to the
Rowing News effort through inspiration, encouragement, and support.”

Cora Zillich of the 2007 world championships media centre in Munich and
Andrew Ruddle, secretary of the Head of the River Race, became Friends
of BARJ for assistance to members over and above the course of their
normal duties.

The Hammer Smith award for the individual or institution that has made
the BARJ membership laugh during the past year went to FISA, the
International Rowing Federation, for its expansion programme. Three of
the federation’s functionaries — the media chief, the coordinator of
the development programme and the chief reporter of World Rowing
magazine — have recently given birth.

(Press Release from the British Association of Rowing Journalists, Wed 2nd July 2008)