SFJ Award: These are the best trade journalists in Switzerland!

Trade journalists are confronted with special challenges: They prepare topics for a generally well-informed audience that has high expectations. Therefore, they have to go into depth in their work - but at the same time make sure to write elegantly and pleasingly. 

Every year, the Swiss Federation of Professional Journalists (SFJ) honors those authors who have found particularly innovative or artful answers to the aforementioned challenges. This will also be the case on November 20, 2019 at the Sihl-City Center. 

What challenges do architecture and engineering firms face when project entries are increasingly made as BIM models, i.e. when they have to use the "Building Information Modeling" method? This question was addressed by journalist Judith Solt in the magazine TEC21 and secured first place in the SFJ Awards with her article.

According to the jury, the author has succeeded in "elaborating in an outstanding way how momentous this upheaval is - and how little it has been able to shake up the planning industry so far. The extensive text remains clear at all times thanks to its transparent structure; readers are consistently led from aspect to aspect by apt intertitles, and the author does not shy away from pointed statements ("The heads are deep in the sand").

This is what winners look like: The winners of the SFJ Awards 2019 Markus Gehrig, Judit Solt and Carmen Hocker (from left) . 

The contribution in Bioterrawith which Carmen Hocker won second place at the SFJ Awards, is dedicated to The richly illustrated article is devoted to the "multifaceted interrelationship between plant and pollinator". Such a zoological-botanical topic in a magazine aimed at people "who take care of their garden and balcony biologically and close to nature with pleasure, enjoyment and out of love for the environment" (homepage) requires a mediation strategy that ensures illustration, a depth of explanation appropriate to the target group as well as usefulness without under-challenging readers with more technical knowledge.

According to the jury, the author had solved this task in an exemplary manner. She explained technical terms such as "signal amplification", "mimicry" or "food deception flower" in an easily comprehensible way and illustrated them with examples and precise illustrations. In addition, she had consulted two experts for explanations, who knew how to formulate in layman's language. 

Third place went to Markus Gehrig with an article in the magazine Electrical engineeringThe more electric vehicles are in operation, the more electrical planners have to think about cost-effective basic installations, for example in underground garages. Gehrig explains what needs to be considered in his technical text. And to provide practical help to the reading public, he has made extensive calculations of his own on charging duration and performance, the results of which are presented in tabular overviews.

This impressed the award jury: "The simple but effective structuring and the enrichment of the main text with numerous modules (explanatory graphics, glossary, tables, explanatory box, list of sources and references) help to process the concentrated information - no wonder, this specialist journalist also works as an instructor at a higher technical college," they said in their statement.