HOLLYWOOD — BBCNews.com in the United Kingdom and VenturaCountyStar.com in California took the awards for General Excellence in the fifth annual Online Journalism Awards, administered by the Online News Association and the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communications.
The awards — emblematic of the best in online journalism — were handed out in seven professional and two student categories at the annual ONA convention, held Saturday, Nov. 13, at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. In each professional category, separate awards were made to a site in large and small categories.
Following are the categories and winners in the 2004 competition:
General Excellence in Online Journalism
This category honors a Web site that successfully fulfills its editorial mission, effectively serves its audience, maximizes the use of the Web's characteristics and represents the highest journalism standards. The sites were judged on excellence of content, interactivity, multimedia, design, navigation and community tools.
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Winner (large sites): BBCNews.com
This is the second time that BBC News has won the general excellence award. The judges were effusive in their praise for this site, noting that it has continued to improve and innovate since BBC won the award two years ago. They provide breaking news around the world and around the clock in multiple languages. The site is well-designed and easy to navigate, offering versions optimized for narrow and broadband, Web and mobile devices. They use video and audio extensively, taking advantage of the deep resources of BBC News around the world. Community is an important part of the site too, with actively managed bulletin boards and live chat windows during live interviews and ongoing events. They set the standard for online news.
Winner (small sites): VenturaCountyStar.com, covering Ventura County, California
The judges said it's both a news site and an online home for the local community. They understand the area they serve, providing strong daily news coverage, live updates of high school sports, community photos, staff blogs, Web cams, and interactivity with clear design and navigation. They do something other local sites should do - providing links right on the home page to coverage of specific towns in their coverage area.
Large site finalists: CNN.com, WSJ.com, WashingtonPost.com
Small site finalists: PublicIntegrity.org, CQ.com, Frontline World, POV
This category honors achievement in the combined use of audio and/or visual techniques, design, navigation, multimedia, interactivity and community to tell a story and serve a community.
Winner (large sites): WashingtonPost.com for "Defining the Barrier" and AFP for "Tour de France"
Regarding the Washingtonpost.com's package, the judges noted the creativity in storytelling, using both geography and point of view to illustrate the different sides of the conflict over the wall. They used maps, video, 360-degree photos and audio to explain complex issues in an even-handed and insightful way. The judges said it was an excellent use of the expertise of the Post correspondent in the region.
And for the AFP Tour de France coverage, the judges said it is an incredible tool for following a sports event in real time, with an interface that provides tremendous detail on the race. It includes real-time running news updates and complete access to all data about every rider in the race. An excellent job mixing maps, news and data.
Winner (small sites): POV/Borders for "Environment."
The project is an interactive examination of the choices Americans make about what they eat, drink and breathe. The judges said the site is beautifully designed, with an outstanding mix of various media - using text, photos, audio, video, interactive graphics and games to tell each part of a very deep package.
Large site finalists:
Small site finalists:
This category honors stories that uncover major news based on the reporters' own exclusive investigations or that offer compelling and original analysis and interpretation.
Winner (large sites): CBSNews.com for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal
The "60 Minutes" story broke open the scandal of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, and the judges said CBSNews.com did an excellent job of extending the story for the Web. It was packaged well and provided content that went far beyond what was in the television reports.
Winner (small sites): PublicIntegrity.org for "Silent Partners"
The judges called it a strong story which was timely in recognizing early on the impact 527 committees would have on the political campaign. Not only do their stories put the issue in context, their deep database and detailed research gives insight into which individuals are funding these organizations. An excellent, well-organized piece of Internet journalism with real impact.
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Small site finalists:
This category honors coverage by a site staff of a breaking-news event or development demonstrating exceptional reporting under deadline pressure.
Winner (large sites): SignOnSanDiego.com for coverage of "The Week of Fire"
This award is for coverage of the October 2003 wildfires that swept through San Diego County. The judges said SignOnSanDiego.com knows their readers and their territory and covered the local story well, providing updates throughout the day, original video on deadline and a valuable tool that let readers find out how close the fires were to them - very important, practical information during a story that was changing quickly with conflicting reports.
Winner (small sites): NBC4i.com for their coverage of the Columbus serial shootings
The judges said that the site covered the story minute-by-minute with frequent updates on the Web. They used the medium well with profiles of the victims, maps of the shootings, comments from readers and in addition to breaking news coverage, offered solid service journalism providing up-to-date information for a community facing a crisis.
Large site finalists:
Small site finalists:
This category honors a unique and powerful voice of commentary original to the Web, displaying freshness of insight and clear writing, with special emphasis on creative use of the medium through blogging and community journalism.
Winner (large sites): Nicholas D. Kristof for his op-ed stories on NYTimes.com
The judges said Kristoff is using a different medium to provide op-ed. He's extending his work to the Web in a significant way, clearly reporting these columns for both media simultaneously. In the paper you can read his column, online you can feel it. He's engaging his readers in his work and you can tell from the comments he gets back and forth that they value that interaction. He also goes out in the world to report in a way that many columnists do not - his piece on the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge points out that most people who talk about it, haven't ever seen it. He did.
Winner (small sites): Dan Gillmor's "E-Journal"
Dan Gillmor's "E-Journal" from SiliconValley.com is one of the original blogs covering news of the tech industry and topics beyond. The judges said it's a quick read that fits the medium, responds quickly to the news of the day and generates lots of comments from readers. Gillmor is a pioneer in the form who covers a wide range of topics and has one of the best approaches to commentary online. His approach, posting multiple times each day, has helped define the medium and influenced the hundreds of bloggers who followed him online.
Large site finalists:
Small site finalists:
This category honors stories and sites that shed light on a single topic that helps visitors improve the quality of their lives, for example, health, personal finance, education or family, to name just a few such topics.
Winner (large sites): CBC News for "Adverse Drug Reactions"
The judges found it to be an extremely comprehensive project, giving Canadians, and Americans as well, useful information on dangerous drugs in an easy to use database, with accompanying stories and information providing valuable context. The judges said CBC News performed an outstanding public service in bringing this information to the public. They did significant work in getting the Canadian government to divulge this information and then putting it online.
Winner (small sites): "Toxic Treats" from OCRegister.com
The judges said the package is a very sound investigative project bringing attention to an important public health issue, with every part of the package in both English and Spanish. It is nicely repurposed from the newspaper and takes advantage of the medium with features the print version just can't offer - in particular the database of the candies and images of the wrappers is a very valuable public service, helping the community address an insidious problem.
Large site finalists:
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Specialty Journalism is a category that's new to the OJAs this year. It honors Web sites and subsites that focus on a specific area of content, such as entertainment and the arts, sports, business, lifestyle and so on.
Winner (large sites): "Canada Votes" from CBC News
The judges found the CBC site covering the June 2004 Canadian elections to be breathtaking in its comprehensiveness, offering a detailed look at the entire country, covering issues, deep election results, analysis and commentary, voter tools and extensive archives. CBC News goes well beyond the election coverage provided by many other news organizations.
Winner (small sites): The Arts section of WBUR.org
The judges described the site as a terrific example of arts journalism. It provides cultural news, blogs, cartoons, reviews and opinion. In particular, the judges said the arts blog is an innovative way to provide local arts coverage. If you live in the Boston area and want to stay tuned in to the arts, nothing would be more useful.
Large site finalists:
Small site finalists:
This new category honors excellence in original online journalism by a full-time student or student team reporting on a single story or issue.
Winner: "Chiloe Stories"
An online documentary by students from the University of North Carolina and the University of the Andes examines the clash of modern culture and native traditions in a fishing and farming community on an isolated archipelago in Southern Chile. The judges said this bilingual site exhibits excellent design, slicing the story in a nonlinear fashion and using the medium well, combining text, sophisticated photography and graphics in an easy-to-navigate package that shows creativity and innovation. It's a huge effort on a little-known topic.
Finalists:
Another new category, awarding overall excellence in an online news Web site by a staff of student journalists.
Winner: Arizona State University's WebDevil
This site provides news to ASU's 57,000 students. The judges noted that the WebDevil is an online newspaper that's covering its community well, with a strong focus on breaking news. They're doing exactly what a news Web site should do.
Finalist: NewsLink Indiana, a site serving Muncie, Indiana and the surrounding counties, produced by a team at Ball State University.
The Online Journalism Awards received 500 English-language entries from Web sites in the United States and abroad.
The Online News Association is an association composed largely of professional online journalists. The Association has more than 600 members whose principal livelihood involves gathering or producing news for digital presentation. The membership includes news writers, producers, designers, editors, photographers and others who produce news for the Internet or other digital delivery systems, as well as academic members and others interested in the development of online journalism.
The USC Annenberg School for Communication, located in Los Angeles, is among the nation's leading institutions devoted to the study of journalism and communication, and their impact on politics, culture and society. With an enrollment of more than 1,700 graduate and undergraduate students, USC Annenberg offers B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in journalism, communication, and public relations.
This is the list of judges for the 2004 awards:
Beau Brendler, director, Consumer Reports WebWatch;
Merrill Brown, founder and principal, MMB Media LLC;
Doug Feaver, executive editor, Washingtonpost.com and president of the Online News Association;
Sue Gardner, director, CBC.Ca;
Mitch Gelman, senior vice president and executive producer, CNN.com;
Rich Jaroslovsky, editor at large, Bloomberg News;
Chris Jennewein, director of Internet operations, Union-Tribune Publishing Co.;
Kevin P. McKenna, Circuits editor, The New York Times;
Anthony Moor, editor, OrlandoSentinel.com;
Robert Niles, Editor, Online Journalism Review;
Michael Parks, professor and director, School of Journalism, USC Annenberg School for Communication;
Kevin Roderick, journalist and creator of L.A. Observed blog;
Neal Scarbrough, vice president and editor-in-chief, ESPN.com.
