Presenters included John Cleary a leading commentator on Religious affairs, working with the ABC Radio and Television and Andrew West a long-term journalist, author and speech writer.
A Panel discussion on Saturday afternoon, covered "The Numbers Game – How to Survive Budget Cuts and the Marketing Monster", something of interest to most publications these days.
At the 2009 ARPA Awards Dinner, the guest speaker was Hugh Mackay, who was described as "a commentator on many topics, ranging from the place of women in society, to the information deluge and the spiritual state of the nation."
The Awards for Excellence 2009 were presented following Mr Mackay's address. Sponsored by Ansvar Insurance, they were presented by David Harris, the Regional Manager – NSW Ansvar Insurance and Hugh Mackay.
The Premier Presentation was the Gutenberg Award 2009 (awarded by the President from member nominations and after consultation).
The ARPA President, Captain Peter McGuigan of The Salvation Army's Communications and Media Department, read the Citation, leading up to the climactic presentation.
"The 2009 Gutenberg Award winner is an outstanding example of excellence in religious publishing and communication that the award represents. The winner also embodies the commitment to hard-working, visionary and comprehensive Christian newspaper journalism that should inspire the religious press in Australia and New Zealand, and make us proud to be journalists of the Church in Australasia.
"This publication stands out for its consistent high quality in news reporting, and feature, opinion and devotional writing, not to mention the quality of its images and the creative use of those images. It informs, builds morale in its particular denominational readership, challenges its readers' perspectives on social and justice issues, and provides columns of special interest for different groups within its constituency. This balance of content is really quite remarkable and an outstanding achievement of the paper's small team.
"Being a weekly newspaper, the information is always timely, and reorganising the advertising space in recent years has enabled the expansion of the paper from 24 to 40 pages. Often, special editions go to 48 pages and sometimes more.
"To publish a 40-page weekly newspaper requires extraordinary skill, and high-level editorial organisation and global vision. It also requires a deep commitment to faith and love for one's particular church. The Editor has all of this and gives strong leadership to his gifted team. This showed clearly in 2008, when his denomination staged arguably the largest single church event in the history of Australia. The reporting of this event was moving – outstanding – in this newspaper.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the event I speak of was World Youth Day, and this year's winner of the Gutenberg Award is: THE CATHOLIC WEEKLY.