Digital Edge Awards announced
NAAs New Media Federation members presented the Online Innovator Award to Rusty Coats, director of new media at MORI Research Inc., Minneapolis.
Meanwhile, Best Overall News Site awards went to familiar winners: ljworld.com, nytimes.com and hamptonroads.com. And, as it often does, The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World walked away with more awards than anyone, taking home three.
Here are some of the 2005 Digital Edge Awards winners, their affiliated newspapers and select comments from Edgie judges:
Best Overall News Site, Circulation Less Than 75,000
LJWorld.com (www.ljworld.com)
LJWorld.com/The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World
Comments: LJWorld.com is relentless in its pursuit of new methods to inform and engage its audience. The Journal-Worlds highly converged newsroom inspires a culture of multi-layered storytelling online-exclusive video and audio, Flash animations and audience-controlled 360-degree panoramic images and exceptional database-driven features. Visitors participate in live chats and post comments about the major issues of the day.
Best Overall News Site, Circulation 75,000 to 250,000
PilotOnline.com and HamptonRoads.com (www.hamptonroads.com)
PilotOnline.com and HamptonRoads.com/The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk
Comments: Energized by a mandate to provide immediate, continuous news, The Virginian-Pilots Web sites serve the community with smartly organized and deeply informative coverage. The sites do much more than issue rapidly updated news reports; they interact with readers who contribute photos, on-the-scene reporting and opinions.
Best Overall News Site, Circulation Greater Than 250,000
NYTimes.com (www.nytimes.com)
NYTimes.com/The New York Times
Comments: NYTimes.coms extraordinary combination of Web-exclusive news updates, engrossing multimedia presentations and tremendous analysis elevated the site to its second consecutive Best Overall New Site trophy. Throughout the 2004 presidential campaign, NYTimes.com produced some of the Webs most comprehensive and informative coverage.
Most Innovative Use of Digital Media: News Event Coverage, Circulation Less Than 75,000
Unnatural Disasters (http://lang.sbsun.com/projects/fireflood)
SBSun.com/The San Bernardino Sun, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Redlands Daily Facts
Comments: To create awareness among the public and government officials, this four-part series investigated the relationship between local wild fires in 2003 and flooding and mud slides the next year. Positioned as a public service story that asks how safe are you?, the package informed and alarmed with intense photography, a Flash-animated map, first-person audio and a chat with the fire marshal.
Most Innovative Use of Digital Media: News Event Coverage, Circulation 75,000 to 250,000
PalmBeachPost.com STORM 2004 (www.palmbeachpost.com/edgie2005)
PalmBeachPost.com/The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Fla.
Comments: During a season of devastating hurricanes, PalmBeachPost.com transformed itself from a news site to an indispensable public service for local readers and national audience. PalmBeachPost.com delivered constantly updated news reports and investigative stories, strengthened by excellent Flash features that traced the paths of the hurricanes and multimedia galleries. The sites message board become a 24/7 community resource as staff members and area residents shared details about where to find shelter, food and other essentials.
Most Innovative Use of Digital Media: News Event Coverage, Circulation Greater Than 250,000
Echo Company(www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/echo_company/)
The Philadelphia Inquirer/Knight Ridder Digital/Knight Ridder Washington Bureau
Comments: Readers look to newspapers, and their sites, for penetrating stories and detailed portraits of people thrust into extraordinary situations. Echo Company, a first-person account of the ambush and deaths of 12 U.S. soldiers in Iraq, more than delivers on those expectations. A joint project from The Philadelphia Inquirer, Knight Ridder Digital and Knight Ridders Washington, D.C., bureau, Echo Company vividly describes the violence that claimed these lives with photos, video and voices of loved ones who mourn their loss.
Best Home Page User Experience, Circulation Less Than 75,000
Lawrence.com (www.lawrence.com)
Lawrence.com/The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World
Comments: Beneath the bold, distinct and playful design, a powerful search engine connects visitors with the content they desire articles, concert listings, venue and restaurant information and more. Style and functionality rule on Lawrence.com.
Best Home Page User Experience, Circulation 75,000 to 250,000
MKEonline.com (www.mkeonline.com)
MKEonline/MKE, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Comments: A stylish lifestyle site for 25- to 34-year-olds, MKEonline emphasizes functionality, visual order and creativity. The navigation, which employs pop-up tabs, is smart and direct. To help visitors find exactly what they want, the site eschews cute-but-confusing navigation names in favor of to-the-point labels such as home & life and dining, movies and events. A calendar feature, Plan Your Escape, offers quick access to things to do during the next 10 days.
Best Home Page User Experience, Circulation Greater Than 250,000
tampabay.com (www.tampabay.com)
tampabay.com/tbt* (Tampa Bay Times), St. Petersburg Times
Comments: Tampabay.com celebrates a lost art among news sites by keeping its home page compact. Theres no scrolling required, yet the site treats visitors to a huge package of lifestyle and entertainment options, along with fast access to auto, job and real estate listings from the St. Petersburg Times. Tampbay.com emphasizes search functionality with two search options on the home page, supplemented by a calendar and pull-down menus.
Best Sports Site, Circulation Less Than 75,000
LJWorld.com/sports (www.ljworld.com/sports)
LJWorld.com/The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World
Comments: The Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, a Best Sports Site winner in 2003, continues to exhilarate local sports fans with a scorecard of player statistics, video highlights, e-mail and cell phone alerts, and even a blog about local recreation-league baseball and softball teams. Judges agreed that LJWorld.com owns sports coverage in its community.
Best Sports Site, Circulation 75,000 to 250,000
PackerInsider.com (www.packerinsider.com)
Journal Interactive/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Comments: Green Bay Packers fans, unite! Packer backers pay a subscription fee to read commentary from seven columnists, receive live game updates and interact with a PackerInsider writer after each game. Then they jump into the fray by writing blog submissions, submitting photos and posting their own game-story captions.
Best Sports Site, Circulation Greater Than 250,000
Boston.com Sports (www.boston.com/sports)
Boston.com/The Boston Globe
Comments: Loaded with enough curse-busting content and interactive features to satisfy any member of Red Sox Nation, Boston.coms sports section was the No. 1 destination for coverage of the Sox long-overdue rise to glory. This was inside baseball at its best, powered by multiple layers of text, audio, video and fun fan-submitted content. The Red Sox story dominated, but the site also served readers in search of professional, collegiate and high school sports.
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1 comments about 'Digital Edge Awards announced'I need a telephone no. to call packer insider.
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