DAIC and ITN Editor Dave Fornell holds the 2019 Neal Award for best technical content with DAIC/ITN Editorial Director Melinda Taschetta-Millane, who is holding the finalist certificates for three other award entries at the award luncheon in New York City in March.
Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology (DAIC) was recently recognized as a finalist in the Jesse H. Neal Awards for the third year in a row, and DAIC won the award for best technical content for its team coverage of the potential safety issues related to gadolinium-based MRI contrast agents. The Neals are recognized as the Pulitzer Prize of the business press.
DAIC Editor Dave Fornell, Editorial Director Melinda Taschetta-Millane and Associate Editor Jeff Zagoudis, who also produce DAIC’s sister radiology publication Imaging Technology News (ITN), won the Neal for best technical content for “The Debate Over Gadolinium MRI Contrast Toxicity.” The article, posted on both ITN and DAIC websites, explains the issues involved in patient gadolinium health claims. The team won for its combination of print, digital, video and social media coverage of the topic.
The article has had more than 121,000 pageviews since it was posted last year and is the top performing landing page for the ITN website. The award also recognized the use of search engine optimization (SEO) to boost the article ranking on Google searches on this topic and for its links to several staff-produced videos with MRI thought leaders and articles.
DAIC also was a finalist for best work by a single author for Fornell's reporting from the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2018 conference. This included extensive social media posts during the conference, blog posts, articles on new technology developments, a video tour of new technology on the expo floor and interviews with numerous key thought leaders.
ITN was named a finalist in two other Neal categories, including best contributed column series and best work by a single author for ITN and DAIC contributing editor Greg Freiherr.
In 2018, DAIC won the Neal award for best use of social media. DAIC's social media reach on Facebook alone in 2018 and into 2019 has reached more than 100,000 unique users per month. DAIC's Facebook reach from its TCT 2018 coverage was a record 321,000 unique viewers. During the weeks of its medical conference coverage and hospital site visits in 2018, DAIC reached a total of 1.7 million people just on Facebook.
DAIC was also recently named a national and regional finalist in social media in the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) 2019 Awards of Excellence. The winners for the national and regional awards will be named in May. The submission included analytics and social media post examples showing it is now reaching more than 100,000 people or more each month on social media.
The Neal Awards are sponsored by Connectiv, a division of the Software and Information Industry Association. The winners are selected for exhibiting journalistic enterprise, service to the industry and editorial craftsmanship.