Bankrate.com: Dealing with Disaster
November 18, 2000
Winner, Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Online Public Service award, 1999. A four-part report on Hurricane Floyd analyzing the difficulties people face when natural disasters strike. Even though it’s very text-heavy and lacks multimedia and interactive elements, the comprehensive reporting and useful tips make this well worth reading.
Salon.com: Drug Czar
November 18, 2000
Winner, Enterprise Journalism, Online Journalism Awards 2000. Report on how network television shows included anti-drug pitches in their programming to cash in on a complex government advertising subsidy. “An exclusive story that had significant impact on network television, advertising and the role of government. It reflected deep reporting of an unexplored topic — the kind of investigative work that Web journalists should aspire to,” the judges said.
CNET News.com: Aftershocks from the Microsoft breakup
November 18, 2000
Winner, Breaking News, Online Journalism Awards 2000. Comprehensive treatment of the year’s biggest trial, using a limitless news hole to combine straightforward reporting with in-depth legal documents and an explanation of a complicated case. “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 report was exhaustive and of high quality. Especially compelling were the interactive graphics describing what’s next in the legal path and the full details of the various documents involved in the case,” the judges said.
Cleveland Live: Choosing Nursing Homes
November 18, 2000
Winner, Service Journalism, Online Journalism Awards 2000. In-depth report — a collaborative effort between Cleveland Live site and The Plain Dealer newspaper — helping readers with the difficult decision of selecting a nursing home for an older relative. The judges praised the site for studying state records, and for producing a searchable database with a ratings chart of nursing homes that the average reader could benefit from. The package also contained touching notes about individuals’ stories, as well as tips for visiting someone in a nursing home — a very difficult thing to do.
APBNews.com: The Great Basin Murders
November 18, 2000
Winner, Creative Use of the Medium, Online Journalism Awards 2000. Coverage of the unsolved murders of nine women whose bodies were found scattered across the Great Basin desert region of Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. “ABPNews.com made excellent use of the whole palette of media types to cast light on a series of murders, little known elsewhere. Audio, video, scanned police reports, maps and photos of the victims make the stories come alive in a way that print publications couldn’t do,” the judges said.
MTVi News: Untold Story of Woodstock ‘99
November 18, 2000
“Playing with Fire: The Untold Story of Woodstock ‘99,” MTVi News. Finalist, 2000 IRE Awards, online reporting. Sonicnet.com, part of the MTVi.com group, published a five-part investigative series on the looting, arson and rioting at Woodstock ‘99 on the first anniversary. Based on interviews with dozens of Woodstock employees and volunteers, promoters, local officials, industry experts and police, along with reviews of internal and government documents related to the festival, the series revealed that concert promoters and local officials failed to heed warning signs of impending disaster. According to the Sonicnet.com investigation, Woodstock ‘99 was in danger of being canceled several times before it began. and concert officials failed to meet the conditions of their mass gathering permit, which included traffic, security and public health concerns.
A Dozen Online Writing Tips
November 10, 2000
Poynter Institute visiting faculty member Jonathan Dube shared these online writing tips with participants of the institute’s first “Writing Online News” seminar. (Also published on Poynter.org and in the book “Shop Talk and War Stories.”)
ABCNews.com: Chaos in Seattle
November 9, 2000
Coverage of the World Trade Organization protests by ABCNEWS.com’s Jonathan Dube (CyberJournalist.net’s publisher), featuring on-the-spot reporting with video and graphic elements and capturing the frenzied atmosphere of the moment. Winner, Breaking News, Online Journalism Awards 2000. “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 judges said.