2007 Online Journal...[yawn]ism

The 2007 Online Journalism Awards [ABOUT] was held October 19 in Toronto. The awards honor excellence in English-language Web journalism. Twenty categories placed 70 finalists in the running after it was narrowed down from 700 entries by judges. Many news sources were recognized throughout the night in the packed Dominion Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel, but some stood out further than others. I’ve added my two-cents, after some of the named winners.

Big-time Duo Winner: Oakland Tribune's "Not Just a Number"
I liked this site. The loading page was cool, a little slow, yet still very entertaining for my mundane mind. I liked how the creators developed all of the pieces and put so many unique aspects into it. One thing I though could’ve been used in a more effective way was the color pallet. “Not Just a Number” has nothing to do with homicides and the tan color is too…fresh, I would have gone with a darker, more mellow tone to really set the mood for the piece.

Special recognition: washingtonpost.com for its multimedia package, OnBeing.
This site bothers me, I like the concept of putting ordinary people out there for the world, but some of the stories presented are so…dumb, it really turns me off. There’s no point to the entire site, it’s a waste of time and if the site hadn’t been submitted to judges, no one would have gone to it besides the people involved in it.

Beat reporting, small: Florida Today, Space Beat.
The layout for this site was interesting, I had to double check it because I thought I had been sent to an advertisement page. They could have done something really cool (i.e. a space ship landing on the page and expanding to different portals of the project) there were many possibilities for this page. This page by far was my least favorite of all the sites recognized.

Beat reporting, large: Wired.com.
There’s not much I can say about wired.com. It’s a good site, it gives a lot of up-to-date information for all types of computer and gadget geeks. I think everyone and there dog knew that wired.com would be honored for something.

Outstanding Use of Digital Media, small: Wisconsin State Journal, Hip Hop 101.
This might be bias because I love Wisconsin, but this site was very informative given it’s a topic I wouldn’t know much about. The layout is nice, the different types of multimedia are intriguing and overall the presenters did a good job of making navigation easy and fun.

Outstanding Use of Digital Media, large: super-slow Discovery Channel’s , Everest Beyond the Limit.
Whoa! Pretty! But, of course it would be. The whole Discovery network is rolling in the dough, so for them not to be up to par would be surprising. I really like all of the photography, it makes for a clearer, better grasp of what is trying to be conveyed.

Investigative journalism, large: ABC News, Brian Ross Investigates: "The Mark Foley Investigation."
Boo! I really hate blogs, any type of blogs, especially political ones. However, abc.com did do a good job of presenting all sides of the information and giving as much detail as possible. Even if I don’t agree with the topic, I’ll hold my peace and say no more.

Investigative Journalism, small: Center for Investigative Reporting, Danger On Your Plate.
I don’t understand this site, is a foreign language site too? Either way, I personally don’t think it works. The color scheme is off, the pictures do not seem to tell any type of agenda and the stories featured are so boring I wouldn’t have taken a minute reading them if I hadn’t had to.

Specialty Journalism, large: Livescience.com.
This site just exudes professionalism, which I guess is a good accomplishment for a company dealing with health. I especially liked their “Yahoo”esque story slideshow highlights. It’s spiffy, clean and let’s you know where to go for what in a new, interesting way. Overall, it’s good!

Specialty Journalism, small: Council on Foreign Relations.
This site dedicates itself to publicizing the challenging issues of primarily policy-makers. I didn’t so much care for this particular winner, I thought the judges could have picked a better site. The information that I, as a citizen, would want to learn about was difficult to find easily. There was a lot of information, but not very relevant information, but that’s my opinion.

Student Journalism had two winners:
*Border Beat.
It looks like an elemental set-up otherwise done by a junior high student, has over 10 different multimedia packages which was surprisingly pleasing.
*Our Tahoe.
Again, is not a very intriguing layout, actually contains a lot of useful information, but does not have as much multimedia as the latter. I guess you could say, don’t judge a site by its cover. I think if I were a judge, I would have gone with Border Beat alone.

All in all, I was pretty disappointed in the pickings by the judges. I’m thinking maybe the entrys weren’t so good this year, who knows. I think my favorite one would have to be the discovery.com site, I really enjoyed looking at that one. My least favorite would have to be the OnBeing site, don’t even get me started on it again. It just fires me up. Next year’s award show will be held in Washington.