2005 Online Journalism Awards

2005 Online Journalism Awards

NEW YORK, Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- NYTimes.com took three Online News Association Awards at the organization's sixth annual celebration of the best in online journalism held over the weekend in New York. The site won in the categories of general excellence, breaking news and outstanding use of multiple media for large sites.

"As good as we are we must continue to get better, all of us. We've got to get there before Yahoo! and before Google gets there," quipped Len Apcar, editor-in-chief of NYTimes.com.

NewWest.net received two awards: enterprise and general excellence for small sites. NewWest, a news site devoted to covering the Rocky Mountain West, has been in existence for only eight months. Slate Magazine also took two awards: for online commentary for large sites and for Enterprise Journalism (large) for its report on torture.

The contest was coordinated by Rebecca Fairley Raney, Annenberg contest project manager, and John Granatino, Assistant General Manager, Belo Interactive Media and chairman of ONA's Awards Committee.

The finalists and the winners were selected through a two-step process. First, a group of 70 journalists screened entries in each category and narrowed them to a set of five to ten nominees. These nominees were then reviewed by the OJA judges, a group of 11 journalists with extensive experience in new and old media, who met at USC to pick the finalists and the winners.

The Online Journalism Awards received 600 English-language entries from Web sites in the United States and abroad. The judges followed a strict recusal policy, leaving the judging room during discussions and not voting in any category in which their own sites came up for review.

Located in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, the USC Annenberg School for Communication ( http://www.annenberg.usc.edu/ ) 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.

The Online News Association is an association composed largely of professional online journalists. The Association has more than 600 professional 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.

Here are the winners for the 2005 Online Journalism Awards.

General Excellence in Online Journalism (Large)
-- The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/

General Excellence in Online Journalism (Medium)
-- Spokesman Review, http://www.spokesmanreview.com/
General Excellence in Online Journalism (Small)
-- New West, http://www.newwest.net/

Breaking News (Large)
-- "Asia's Deadly Waves," New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2004/12/27/world/worldspecial4/

Breaking News (Small)
-- "McGowan Family Tragedy," The Palm Springs Desert Sun,
http://www.thedesertsun.com/mcgowan

Online Commentary (Large)
-- "Ad Report Card" by Seth Stevenson, Slate Magazine,
http://www.slate.com/?id=3944&qp=26609&dto=06/30/05&dfrom=07/01/04

Online Commentary (Medium)
-- "Lawrence.com blogs," http://www.lawrence.com/blogs/mathis/

Online Commentary (Small)
-- "The Business Electric," Arthur O'Donnell, Energy Pulse
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/author.cfm?at_id=495

Outstanding Use of Multiple Media (Large)
-- "Class Matters," New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/class

Outstanding Use of Multiple Media (Small) (Tie)
-- "Mission to Mante," Boulder Daily Camera,
http://mante.dailycamera.com/
-- "State of the Hudson, Poughkeepsie Journal,
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/hudson/

Specialty Journalism (Large)
-- The Chronicle of Higher Education, http://chronicle.com/

Specialty (Small)
-- News@nature.com, http://www.nature.com/news

Service journalism (Large)
-- "Your Right to Know," Journal News,
http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/foil/

Service Journalism (Small)

-- "Unsafe Haven, The Crisis in Home Health Care," Winston-Salem Journal, http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ/Page/WSJ_ContentPage& c=Page&cid=1031780628526

Enterprise Journalism (Large)
-- "What is Torture?" Slate Magazine, http://www.slate.com/id/2119122

Enterprise (Small)
-- "Sex, Money and Meth Addiction," New West,
http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/546/

Best student website
-- No finalists

Student Journalism
-- "Global Messengers," University of North Carolina,
http://www.ibiblio.org/solympics

Source: Online News Association

CONTACT: Tom Regan, Executive Director of Online News Association,
+1-617-698-5252, or fax, +1-617-698-5252, or tregan@journalists.org

Web site: http://www.onlinenewsassociation.org/

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