Online news sites recognised at DC awards

The Online News Association honoured sites that represented the best in online journalism at the close of its annual conference in Washington DC on Saturday night.

It was interesting to see that a majority of the winning sites are still underpinned by traditional journalistic practices - character driven narratives with an emotional centre.

One standout from this was Washingtonpost.com's Fixing DC's Schools, which won the Knight Public Service award. It does indeed feature the human face of the individuals trying to improve the US capital's notoriously troubled education system. But it underpins all of this with an interactive map database which allows readers to find schools' records on teacher quality, crime, health and safety, building standards and beyond.

In other words, using publicly available information in intelligent ways to tell a story - and allow readers to put the information together in ways that are relevant to them.

Spanish winners

This was the first year that the ONA had an award for websites not in the English language. The winner in the General Excellence (small sites) category was Soitu.es, a fabulously vibrant and imaginative independent Spanish site - and less than a year old.

A considerably more established Spanish language site, and a favourite for many years, ElPais.com, took the award for General Excellence in the large sites category.

Beyond US borders

One constant frustration over the years has been the US-centric nature of these awards. Canada's GlobeandMail.com was shortlisted for two of the main awards, and took home a prize for its special, Talking to the Taliban. Geo Webreportage won for its video-led site.

But beyond this, no English language, non-American sites were to be found in the main awards, even though I have it on good authority that a number were entered - and some great work is being done beyond, as well as inside, US borders. Nonetheless, there was a strong international presence at this conference, so I hope that the work of more foreign online journalists will be recognised in future years.

The full list of winners hasn't yet been published on the ONA website, but here's the full list of nominees:

• Breaking News, Large Sites: NYTimes.com
• Breaking News, Medium Sites: STLtoday.com
• General Excellence in Online Journalism, Large Sites (Non-English): ElPais.com
• General Excellence in Online Journalism, Small Sites (Non-English): Soitu.es
• General Excellence, Large Sites: CNN.com
• General Excellence, Medium Sites: LasVegasSun.com
• General Excellence, Small Sites: Army Times
• Investigative, Large Sites: DallasNews.com
• Investigative, Small Sites: RecordOnline.com
• Knight Award for Public Service: WashingtonPost.com
• Multimedia Feature, Large Sites: Reuters.com
• Multimedia Feature, Medium Sites: GlobeandMail.com
• Multimedia Feature, Small Sites: Geo Webreportage
• Online Commentary, Large Sites: God-o-Meter, Beliefnet
• Online Commentary, Medium Sites: The Bottom Line, DallasNews.com
• Online Commentary, Small Sites: MarkFiore.com
• Online Video Presentation: OregonLive.com
• Outstanding Use of Digital Technology, Large Sites: DesMoinesRegister.com
• Outstanding Use of Digital Technology, Small Site: EveryBlock
• Specialty Site Journalism: WebMD
• Student Journalism: UNC and Universidad de los Andes, South of Here
• Topical Reporting, Large Sites: USAToday.com
• Topical Reporting, Small Sites: Azstarnet.com

A special citation went to ESPN.com for their special Ray of Hope, a story which they credited with inspiring 50,000 people to become organ donors, potentially saving 200,000 lives.

The full list of finalists, and the projects for which they were nominated is available on the ONA website.