HDT Editor Wins Journalism Award for Autonomous Trucking Coverage

Heavy Duty Trucking Equipment Editor Jim Park was honored with a 2021 Jesse H. Neal Award in the Best Technical/Scientific Content category for his coverage of autonomous truck technology.

The Software & Information Industry Association 67th Neal Awards, a premier awards program honoring business-to-business (B2B) journalism, selected Park’s autonomous truck coverage as the winning entry for the category. Awards were announced June 9.

Congratulations to HDT Equipment Editor Jim Park, honored for his reporting explaining #AutonomousSystems for heavy-duty trucks! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/wU92L4koyh

— Heavy Duty Trucking (@HDTrucking) June 9, 2021

The entry highlighted the HDT Talks Trucking podcast, with the entry consisting of two podcast episodes as well as a digital feature. Click the following links to read and listen to the winning content:

• Inside the Cab of an Autonomous Truck
• Are Autonomous Trucks Ready for the Road?
• Cops & Robots: How Do We Enforce Robotic Trucks?

Park is the host of the HDT Talks Trucking podcast, which was also a finalist in the Best Podcast category. To listen to the latest episodes, click here.

Park is no stranger to the Neal Awards judging committee. Through the years he’s been the recipient of over 14 honors, including Best Range of Work by a Single Author in 2020.

Before joining Heavy Duty Trucking in 2006 (Equipment Editor since 2008), Park was a truck driver and owner-operator for 20 years. He maintains his commercial driver’s license and brings a real-world perspective to Test Drives, as well as to features about equipment spec’ing and trends, maintenance and drivers. 

"The Neal Awards highlight the best of business-to-business journalism. We're competing against brands serving audiences as diverse as engineers, restaurant owners, lawyers, bankers, the construction industry, architects, nurses, educators, farmers and more," explained HDT Editor in Chief Deborah Lockridge, who is a member of SIIA's Editorial Committee, a Neals second-stage judge, and a multiple Neal winner and finalist herself.

HDT editors now have earned 31 Neal awards and 43 finalist/certificate of merit honors over the years, as well as two Grand Neals.