Globe columnist wins prestigious business award
Boston Globe columnist Steve Bailey last night was named a winner of a Gerald Loeb award for commentary, considered one of the highest honors in business journalism.
Bailey, whose Downtown column runs twice a week on the Business section cover, was honored for work published last year. The columns included his coverage of questionable practices by the board running the Middlesex Retirement System, the largest county pension system in Massachusetts. Bailey was the first to report on the system's troubles, which became part of last year's gubernatorial campaign and resulted in the retirement board voting to shift control of its assets to the state pension fund.
The Loeb judges also considered other Bailey columns that broke news in 2006, including pieces about a plan to fingerprint Fenway Park employees and the impending closure of an AT&T call center in Fairhaven.
"Bailey brings both a sense of outrage and shoe-leather reporting to his columns," the judges said in giving him the award.
Bailey, 56, has been at the Globe since 1977 and has been in the Business department for 25 years, working as a columnist, editor, and reporter. He has been writing the Downtown column since 1999.
The Loeb award was established in 1957 by Gerald Loeb, a founding partner of E.F. Hutton & Co., a now-defunct stock brokerage firm . A panel of 18 judges, mostly editors of major news publications, considered entries in 12 categories. The awards were presented last night in New York.
Last year, Bailey was a finalist for a Loeb award in the commentary category, and in 2004 he was a finalist in the deadline writing category. For the past two years, his columns also have won Best in Business awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers .
Meanwhile, Boston-based reporters for The Wall Street Journal won the large newspaper category for their series on the backdating of stock options. The series has won a Pulitzer prize and many others.
Se Young Lee can be reached at vlee@globe.com. 
