29 November 1984 Bay of Plenty Times win the1984 New Zealand Guild of Agricultural Journalists Provincial Journalism Award

Bay of Plenty Times has won the 1984 New Zealand Guild of Agricultural Journalists Provincial Journalism Award for the most effectively conveyed agricultural messages during September.

This is the third time the newspaper has won the award ; earlier wins were in 1980 and 1982.

Bay of Plenty Times agricultural journalist Phillippa Renaud received the award on behalf of her paper at a special guild dinner at Lincoln College last evening.

Twenty-three-year-old Phillippa has been with the Bay of Plenty Times since May this year, and enjoys covering the rural round.

Phillippa, an A.T.I. journalism graduate, worked for the Auckland Star for about four years before joining the Times six months ago.

She moved back to the Bay of Plenty because that is her home region.

"This job came up and seemed ideal because I have a farming background. So it suited me fine," she said.

"Rural journalism is quite a change to what I was doing before. Now I have to adapt and get used to the new terms and new technology that have sprung up over the last few years."

Phillippa said the A.T.I. course had been tremendously helpful and was the best way to start into journalism.

Getting out and about was one of the best parts of rural journalism.

"Apart from meeting the farmers. They are great people. Compared to a lot of people you meet in the city, particularly doing court," she said.

"It's a pleasant change to meet really nice people. Everyone is so friendly, and she said she had no problems being accepted by farmers and others as a rural journalist.

"My predecessor Rosalie Smith had been doing the job for about 15 years."

Phillippa went nursing when she left school, stayed for a year, but didn't like it. "So I left and got into journalism."

She said she was delighted and "quite surprised about the award. It is particularly good for me because it is my first year in the job. So I am highly delighted, helpful."

Her editor was thrilled. "He really was. Particularly as we had won it before. I think he was a little surprised that we pulled it off this year as I am new in the job," she said.

Her crisp writing style was "something that I learned from my metropolitan reporting days, and it is the style I have adopted in the rural section of the paper."

Phillippa said that sometimes she had problems with introductions, "but once I get that everything else comes."

There were 11 entries for the award :

10 from newspapers, with only one in the South Island, and one from a radio station.

The provincial journalism award is one of the guild's top awards and is made each year to the medium most effectively conveying agricultural messages during one month. ends.

Further information from Mr Don Crabb, Rural Development and Extension Centre, Lincoln College, Canterbury, New Zealand.