Asian Lite beats British publications in awards
Asian Lite, published by New Asian Media Ltd and edited by Anasudhin Azeez, won the prestigious How-Do newspaper of the year award for 2012.
A judging panel comprised of BBC veteran Jim Hancock and Google�۪s Andy Barke selected Asian Lite as the Newspaper of the Year 2012 from the short-list of eight leading British titles including Rupert Murdoch owned News Corporations�۪ The Times; Newsquest�۪s The Bolton News and Johnston Press Group�۪s Lancaster Guardian.
Asian Lite was the only British ethnic media title shortlisted in the 18 award categories. The award ceremony was held at prestigious Lancashire County Cricket Club. The event was attended by several media personalities and industry leaders.
The award committee said Asian Lite bucked the current British trends in declining sales and circulation in publishing and derived innovative solutions to identify new models and revenue streams.
Azeez, who earlier worked for Johnston Press, said How-Do award will inspire the editorial team to stick with its policies to bring back the missionary values of journalism.
���Journalism is more than a business and we are trying our best to serve the community in a better way,� said Azeez. ���We are following a strict advertising policy to protect the readers from the clutches of psychics and the sex industry. In the papers�۪ five-year history, we never took a single advert of psychics, astrologers, faith healers or premium-priced sex chat lines. I hope other Asian titles will emulate our example of avoiding advertisements promoting superstition.�
The award panel also praised the newspaper�۪s quality, creativity and producing the contents ��appropriate to that target audience.�۪
The Manchester-based national newspaper is in the process to launch Asianlite.tv, an internet television, and recently diversified its business to events and target audience publications like Doctor On Call and Indus.