Khabar bags three Gamma Awards at 2008 MAGS conference
To be sure, the Gammas at the Ritz in Buckhead didn’t have the glitz of the Oscars in Hollywood. Nevertheless, for the attendees at The Ritz-Carlton on May 6th, there was plenty of drama and excitement as the winners were announced during the awards banquet, which capped a daylong conference hosted by the Magazine Association of the Southeast (MAGS). In the consumer/free segment, Khabar took home three Gammas: a Gold Award (Best Essay), a Silver Award (Best Cover Design) and a Bronze Award (Best Essay). Khabar also received an “Honorable Mention” (Best Feature).
The Bronze Award was for an editorial titled “False Advertising?” (July 2007). It argued that urban India’s fixation on a Westernized version of the country, where only gloss and glitter exist, is a far cry from how it appears to independent observers. A Silver Award was given for the cover design of the May 2007 issue, whose cover story was called “The Multitasking Mata.”
Khabar also won a Gold Award for an editorial titled “What’s So Right About America” (November 2007). For this essay, the judge made the following comments: “It's not easy to make a political argument in print that doesn't offend some people—and that also uses a personal experience as the basis for the statement about a public issue. Murali Kamma's essay is a passionate, moving, and thoroughly convincing argument about why Americans—and that includes recent immigrants, such as, in his case, Indian Americans—do lead good, privileged lives. His essay is an affirmation of American life.”
Besides the three Gammas, there was an “Honorable Mention” for the May 2007 cover story (“The Multitasking Mata”), which took a look at how Indian American women have experienced, in just a single generation, not just the generational shift but also a cultural one.
Not only is Atlanta-based MAGS the dominant magazine association in the region, it’s also one of the biggest and most successful of its kind in the nation. Its chief mission, as MAGS puts it, is to promote and foster knowledge, networking and excellence in the publishing industry in the Southeast. More than 55 publishers, who put out over 100 magazine titles, are members of MAGS.
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