McKnight’s Long-Term Care News Senior Editor Elizabeth Newman earned a Grand Award for blog writing, and McKnight’s writers and editors also pulled in four other Awards of Excellence in the 2014 APEX Awards for Publication Excellence program.

Newman’s winner, “What makes a good visit? Good staff,” is the fifth Grand Award for McKnight’s, which now has earned 32 national APEX Awards overall.

“After reading this compellingly written blog post, we realized that we wouldn’t be eager to live in either facility, or any like it. But we also realized that, if we did have to, we’d rather be in one of these two than many others,” APEX judges wrote. “ The scenes captured by the writer are so moving that you realize these are extraordinary staff, who would likely not be there if their respective facilities were not exceptional and very well managed. A paradigm of what a blog post should be.”

Awards of Excellence were given individually to McKnight’s Editorial Director John O’Connor for his column, “The Big Picture” in the Editorial & Advocacy Writing category (his fourth), and “The World According to Dr. El” blogger Eleanor Feldman Barbera, Ph.D., in the Blog Content category.

Collectively, the McKnight’s editorial staff earned Awards of Excellence in the “Best Websites — Site Content” category for McKnights.com and in the “Magazines, Journals & Tabloids — Print Over 32 pages” category for McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, which marked its seventh straight APEX honor.

The 26th annual APEX awards were determined based on excellence in editorial content, graphic design and the success of the entry in achieving overall communications effectiveness and excellence, according to contest officials.