Top US sites dominate first Online Journalism Awards

The biggest and best-known US sites dominated the first Online Journalism Awards (OJA) announced in December.

The awards, organised by the Online News Association and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, are designed to recognise excellence in online journalism and innovative use of the new media.

Predictably, the main awards for general excellence in online journalism and breaking news went to sites founded with multi-million dollar deals or backed with colossal names in corporate USA.

Although the awards were open to English-speaking sites worldwide, US sites dominated every category. The OJA received more than 600 entries from 200 sites.

"The more we honour excellence and achievement on the web, the more we help set a high standard so that people will come to trust and value Internet journalism," said Jacqueline Leo, vice-president and editorial director of Meredith Interactive and an OJA judge.

Salon.com was described as a new magazine for a new medium as it scooped the award for general excellence 'original to the web'. Msnbc.com - the joint venture between NBC News and Microsoft - took the prize for general excellence 'in collaboration'.

Another internet giant - CNET News.com - took the prize for breaking news 'original to the web' for its coverage of the legal tussle over the proposed Microsoft breakup. "If you were researching the subject and needed to know everything relevant in one place, you couldn't do much better than to use this single site," the judges said. "The report was exhaustive and of high quality."

CNETNews.com is part of the CNET Networks Inc empire which operates in 25 countries in 16 languages.

The top spot for breaking news 'collaboration' went to ABCNews.com for its coverage of the demonstrations against the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle. The judges said: "With a coherent blend of words, photos, audio and video, ABCNews.com covered the riots in Seattle in a compelling and analytical format. Using simple and clear navigation, the story points readers to relevant sidebars and archival material without overwhelming them with the depth of information."

The biggest players also dominated the 'enterprise' awards designed to recognise excellence in stories broken by online journalists. Salon.com won one of the awards for its Drug Czar report which revealed how network television stations were including anti-drug pitches in their programming in order to cash in on complex government advertising subsidies.

The other enterprise award went to Associated Press for its exclusive report No Gun Ri on the killing of Korean civilians by the US military during the Korean war. In joint first place for this award was the New York Times for its landmark report on race issues in the US.

Although the biggest US news sites dominated these categories, a few smaller independent sites were listed as finalists. The highly acclaimed Central Europe Review was in the top five for the 'general excellence' award.

Two lesser-known sites won the prizes for 'service journalism' designed to recognise work that enables readers to improve the quality of their lives. Babycenter.com took one award for its detailed advice on the health of babies in their first year, while Cleveland Live took the other award for advice on choosing nursing homes.

APBNews.com and TimesUnion.com won the awards for creative use of the medium while Emily Prager of Oxygen.com won the award for best online commentary.

The entries were screened first by a group of 100 international journalists who narrowed the dozens of entries per category to just five. A small group of 11 journalists with experience in old and new media then selected the winner from each group.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).