It's All About Teamwork

I'v

e always felt that the most important judges of TIME are our 30 million readers around the world, and I and my colleagues keep you uppermost in our minds as we produce the magazine each week. But I'd be less than candid if I did not admit that it is also nice when other journalists recognize our work in awards competitions, and this year we've won a record number, primarily for our coverage of Iraq.

On the photography front, Yuri Kozyrev received the prestigious Olivier Rebbot award from the Overseas Press Club for his remarkable photos, and the judges for the World Press Photo foundation gave him first-place honors in the general-news-story category. In the Pictures of the Year International competition, James Nachtwey was named magazine photographer of the year, with Christopher Morris taking second place. Michele Stephenson and MaryAnne Golon won first place in several picture-editing competitions; Hillary Raskin and Alice Gabriner were also recognized. In the American Photography awards, TIME won 11 prizes, with Nachtwey, Kozyrev, Morris, Robert Nickelsberg, Brooks Kraft, Steve Liss and Karen Ballard all singled out for their remarkable work.

The Society of Publication Designers gave their highest honor, the Gold Medal for Excellence, to Arthur Hochstein and Cynthia Hoffman for their work on the Best Photos of 2003 issue. We also won two silver medals and seven merit awards that recognized the work of, among others, D.W. Pine, Thomas Miller, Marti Golon and Christine Dunleavy, along with picture editors Marie Tobias and Dietmar Liz-Lepiorz. TIME.com, led by Joshua Macht, won first place in Web photojournalism from the National Press Photographers Association for the site's Iraq coverage, most notably its feature "21 Days to Baghdad."

"Portrait of a Platoon," written by Romesh Ratnesar and Michael Weisskopf and edited by Lisa Beyer and Steve Koepp, won the National Headliner Award for war coverage, while Joe Klein won first place in the magazine-column category. Weisskopf and Nachtwey won the Daniel Pearl Award for Courage from the Los Angeles Press Club. And Weisskopf, Brian Bennett and Michael Ware won honorable mention for best magazine reporting from abroad from the Overseas Press Club for a series of Iraq pieces.

Everyone who works at TIME deserves credit for these prizes, since putting together the magazine each week is such a collaborative process. Some of us involved in the "Portrait of a Platoon" project gathered for lunch on the afternoon of the Overseas Press Club awards to toast the winners and talk about what an extraordinary time it is to be a journalist. Looking around the room that day, I felt grateful for getting to work with so many talented colleagues — and for having so many readers who appreciate their work.

James Kelly, Managing Editor