Online Videojournalism Awards Presented

Congrats to all winners of Online Journalism Awards, presented this weekend at a banquet in D.C. by the Online News Association.

Per usual, all the videojournalism winners were showcased at the time of their original publication on KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism -- the place to catch award-winning work months before contest judges officially acclaim it!

Online Video Journalism, Large Site
The Toronto Star
William and the Windmill

Online Video Journalism, Medium Site
The Las Vegas Sun and the Greenspun Media Group
Bottoming Out

Online Video Journalism, Small Site
Yale Environment 360
Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining

Online Video Journalism, Student
Knight Center for International Media, School of Communication, University of Miami
My Story, My Goal

The student award went to fourteen University of Miami multimedia graduate students, who teamed with students from seven Knight Center for International Media partner schools in Africa and Asia "to tell stories that attempt to personalize the United Nations Millennium Development Goals."

Working with Tom Kennedy, Knight Center Professional-in-Residence, each team found personal local stories that shed light and insight on critical global issues, including poverty, maternal health, environmental sustainability, universal education, gender equality, HIV AIDS and children's health.

In addition to seven individual mini-documentaries on each of those topics, focusing on seven people from seven African and Asian countries, the project includes a 27-minute documentary, "This is My Goal" (pictured above).

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We previously posted a salute to OJA finalists here (9/29).

To see all the OJA prizewinners in all categories, go here.

2010 Online Journalism Awards Finalists

Congrats to all finalists for the 2010 Online Journalism Awards, announced this week by the Online News Association.

The winners will be announced at the 2010 ONA Conference and Online Journalism Awards Banquet on Oct. 30 in Washington, D.C.

Most of the videojournalism finalists were originally showcased on KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism.

Online Video Journalism, Small Site:

Huffington Post Investigative Fund: Tapped Out: How an Unpaid Water Bill Cost a Baltimore Woman Her Home

MediaStorm: Take Care

Minnesota Public Radio News: Explaining Instant Run-off Voting

Yale Environment 360: Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining

Online Video Journalism, Medium Site:

The Las Vegas Sun and the Greenspun Media Group: Bottoming Out

Knoxville News Sentinel / knoxnews.com: Death on Chipman Street

The Dallas Morning News: Choosing Thomas

Online Video Journalism, Large Site:

NPR: Krulwich on Science

NPR and ProPublica: Traumatic Brain Injury – The Battle For Care

TIME.com: Sudan Stories

The Toronto Star: William and the Windmill

The Washington Post: Scene In Video Series

Online Video Journalism, Student:

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University: The Fall Workshop

Knight Center for International Media, School of Communication, University of Miami: My Story, My Goal

A complete list of finalists, and links to the projects, can be found here.

NPR’s Schiller & AOL’s Armstrong Headline ONA10

The Online News Association today announced NPR's Vivian Schiller and AOL's Tim Armstrong will headline a “keynote conversation” moderated by WSJ.com’s Kara Swisher at its annual conference in Washington, D.C. in October.

Jump-starting the discussion on reinventing media companies will be Vivian Schiller, who joined NPR as President and CEO in 2009, coming from The New York Times Company where she served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of NYTimes.com....

Joining Schiller in conversation will be Tim Armstrong, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of AOL, LLC. Armstrong is responsible for setting strategy and overseeing the businesses and day-to-day operations of the company. He joined AOL in March 2009 from Google, where he served as the President of The Americas Operations...

Moderating the pair will be Kara Swisher, Co-Executive Editor of the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital. A former reporter for the Washington Post, Swisher the author of “aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and Made Millions in the War for the Web” and the sequel, “There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future.”...

You can get more info on the 2010 ONA Conference and Online Journalism Awards Banquet, and register, here.

Screeners Needed for Online Journalism Awards

The Online News Association is looking for help to screen entries for the 2010 Online Journalism Awards, which recognizes excellence in digital journalism.

Participants are eligible for a drawing for free registration to ONA10 (the ONA Conference and Awards Banquet), Oct. 28-30, in Washington, D.C., worth $399 for members and $699 for non-members.

Screeners "provide an invaluable initial assessment for the final judges by grading entries from around the world on quality of journalism, interactivity and community tools, creative use of medium, and design and navigation. Screeners need not be ONA members, but do need to have experience in the online journalism industry."

Screening begins the week of July 19 and must be completed by Tuesday, Aug. 10, at 9 a.m. ET. Screeners often take a few hours over several days to complete their work. You’ll be guided through the process with the help of an easy-to-use web-based tool that allows you to log on anywhere you have an Internet connection.

As a thank-you to screeners who complete their assignments by Monday, Aug. 2, at 9 a.m. ET, we are offering an incentive: Your name will go into a digital hat to make you eligible for one of five free registrations to ONA10.

To sign up as a screener, fill out the application here.

Questions? Contact Sherry Skalko at awards@journalists.org.

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PBS NewsHour's Hari Sreenivasan has been recently announced as the emcee of the Online Journalism Awards banquet. Sreenivasan joined "PBS NewsHour” in December 2009 as an online and on-air correspondent. He worked previously as a correspondent with ABC News, CBS News and CNET.

Who Are the New Content Providers?

Poynter's online News University is offering a one-hour live Webinar on "The New Content Providers and the Media" on Thursday June 24 at 2 p.m. ET. (Registration entitles you to access an archived "replay" at your convenience.)

The course's focus is on "a new generation of content providers collecting, producing and distributing user-generated stories."

These low-cost, high-volume content distributors have captured the attention of major media players. These organizations, including Associated Content, Demand Media, AllVoices, Helium and others, are growing fast. Learn whether and how they meet consumer appetite for news. What is the quality of the content they are producing? Can writers make a living from them? How are these services filling gaps in traditional media coverage?

This Webinar will discuss these new content providers, their products and how they affect traditional news organizations.

Topics include:

# Who are the leading new content providers?
# What are the costs in developing a network?
# What type of content are they producing?
# Where is their content being distributed?
# How can they benefit journalists?
# Are they competitors or partners?
# How can they serve traditional media outlets?

Course instructor Mitch Gelman is a former Newsday reporter who served as Senior Vice President and Executive Producer at CNN.com from 2001 through 2009 before joining Examiner.com as Vice President, Special Projects.

Tuition is $27.95; free for members of the Online News Association (ONA).

Register here.

New Categories for Online Journalism Awards

The Online News Association and the University of Miami’s School of Communication today opened their call for entries for the 2010 Online Journalism Awards, with new categories that recognize emerging platforms and technologies.

Work published between July 1, 2009, and June 30, 2010 is eligible. Deadline for entry submissions is July 16, 2010, at 8 p.m. ET. Applicants can submit their work at JournalistAwards.org.

This year, ONA has introduced changes to acknowledge the role of investigative journalism, the development of emerging platforms and achievements at the collegiate level, as well as a new site that streamlines the entry experience and judging process. Eight awards now come with a total of $33,000 in prize money, courtesy of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Gannett Foundation, which also is supporting innovative investigative work with two new $2,500 awards.

The newest category honors Outstanding Use of Emerging Platforms, achievement by an organization in the use of devices such as smart phones, eReaders and tablets to tell a story and serve a community. To better reflect work being produced by future journalists, students may now enter in three categories — Multimedia Feature Presentation, Outstanding Use of Digital Technologies on the Web and Online Video.

Honorees will be announced on the final night of ONA10, the Online News Association Conference and Awards Banquet, Oct. 28-30, in Washington, D.C.

CATEGORIES:

The Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism: This category, with a prize of $5,000, honors a person or company, journalistic in focus or not, that has built a digital tool significantly enhancing the practice of online journalism.

The Knight Award for Public Service: Recognizes digital journalism that performs a public service for a geographic community through compelling coverage of a vital community issue or event; one $5,000 award.

General Excellence in Online Journalism: Honors a Web site in each of four size categories, plus two from the non-English speaking community, which successfully fulfills its editorial mission, effectively serves its audience, maximizes the use of the Web’s characteristics and represents the highest journalistic standards. The award is $3,000 for each winner, funded by the Gannett Foundation.

Breaking News: Honors digital coverage over a 72-hour period of a breaking-news event or development.

Specialty Site Journalism: Recognizes niche Web sites that focus on a single topic.

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism: Honors stories that uncover major news based on the reporters’ own exclusive investigations or that offer compelling and original analysis and interpretation. Open to all formats, including Web documentaries; two awards of $2,500 each.

Multimedia Feature Presentation: Awards excellence in telling a story to an online audience using multimedia techniques.

Online Topical Reporting/Blogging: Recognizes beat reporting by an individual or team.

Online Commentary/Blogging: Honors a unique and powerful voice of commentary original to the Web.

Community Collaboration Award: Recognizing a news project or Web site that produces outstanding journalism through strong interaction with the community being served.

Outstanding Use of Digital Technologies: Recognizes achievement by a site in the use of digital techniques to tell a story and serve a community.

Online Video Journalism: Awards excellence in online-originated video journalism.

MORE INFO:

ABOUT THE AWARDS

RULES & GUIDELINES

CATEGORIES

ENTER HERE

Vote for KobreGuide's ONA10 Presentation

We'd like to announce that KobreGuide will be putting together a dazzling videojournalism presentation at the Online News Association Conference 2010 this fall.

But we can't. Yet. Because conference presenters are being selected partly on the basis of votes.

Whose votes? Yours!

So... we're shamelessly inviting you to take thirty seconds to vote for us -- and you don't have to be an ONA member or even plan to attend ONA10 to participate.

Simply go here:

http://conference.journalists.org/2010conference/sessionselector/ideas/view/5192

... and be sure to REGISTER (using the link at the top right of the Web page)... and then click the "thumbs up" icon (pictured).

As you'll see, our presentation is designed to share "3 Ways to Dramatically Improve Video Storytelling."

By analyzing award-winning examples of stellar videojournalism published on KobreGuide, you will discover the keys to finding, developing and creating powerful videojournalism stories that attract and impact audiences.

Is it kosher for presenters to ask their fans, followers and colleagues to vote?

ONA says:

Absolutely. Rallying your friends and associates to vote for your proposal demonstrates energy, motivation and organizational ability. And, all of these skills are important when it comes to organizing a successful session for ONA10.

So don't delay! Vote early and often... and we'll save you a front-row seat.

The ONA10 conference is October 28-30 in Washington, DC. Hope to see you there!

Many thanks!

Why Still Photographers Need to Make the Transition to Video

From In the New Media World, Photographers Who Embrace Change Will Succeed, by Wayne Ford (pictured), on the "Black Star Rising" blog.

As an art director, I can certainly envision photographers utilizing their skills across a number of emerging sectors to broaden their commercial base and fill the voids left by declines elsewhere.

For example, it was predicted at the recent Online News Association conference in San Francisco that by 2012, 95 percent of all online content will be video. Even if that figure proves optimistic, that is certainly the direction we are heading. And that presents opportunities for photographers.

A photographer assigned to produce a portrait for a magazine, for example, could easily produce a short sound-bite video of the portrait subject to accompany the story online. Using a camera like the video-enabled Canon 5D, there would be no need to bring additional equipment.

Taking advantage of this access gives the photographer an inside track as the market for online video continues to grow.

Online Journalism Award Winners Announced

Congratulations to the winners of the 2009 Online Journalism Awards, announced yesterday.

Launched in May 2000, the OJAs are administered by the Online News Association.

Among the many categories of awards are "video journalism" and "multimedia presentations."

Here are those winners, with judges' comments and links to the entries (some of which have been previously showcased on KobreGuide).

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Small Site

National Film Board of Canada, Waterlife

Gorgeous. Crazy good. Stunning. User experience is unlike anything we've seen. They threw in, in an organized way, the kitchen sink on this project and succeeded in presenting an innovative and informative look at the issue of water. There is multi-dimensional, multiple media story-telling going on here. Heads and tails above the rest.

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Medium Site

LasVegasSun.com, Quenching Las Vegas' Thirst
(ALSO: On KobreGuide)

There's an awesome coordination between map points, graphics and video. That's innovation. They built a heat map of residential water use that's remarkable. Las Vegas put it all together.

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Large Site

Washington Post Digital, Sacred Ground: The Building of the Pentagon Memorial

Once you start exploring, it's a great piece. It has depth because it lets you explore not only the site, but how it was planned, how it was built via interviews with the architects and a 3D walkthrough. It works very well at different levels. Excellent use of the technologies and the tools.

Online Video Journalism, Small Site

Danny Wilcox Frazier, Produced by MediaStorm, Driftless: Stories from Iowa
(ALSO: On KobreGuide)

This is a stark, black-and-white tale of an Iowa family of farmers. It feels extremely original, the camera work seems expert and the interviews will break your heart while never lingering on any one expression or sentiment. There's a richness, restraint and even a little dark humor here that was nowhere in any of the other videos.

Online Video Journalism, Large Site

Slate V, The Power Recap

Very funny expression of presidential campaign highlights, built entirely on selection of key moments in stills and video and then blending them in a frenetic editing style that works to create the "viral video" formula. It is an interesting commentary experiment offering the kind of analysis that cannot ordinarily be found in straight journalistic reporting by newspapers. (SEE BELOW!)

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Kudos to the Online Journalism Awards finalists, including:

Online Video Journalism, Small Site

* AARP Bulletin Today, Journey to Remember

* AARP Bulletin Today, What Will Happen to Andy?

* Hank Wilson, No Snitching, No Suspects

Online Video Journalism, Large Site

* ESPN.com, You Tube Baby
(ALSO: On KobreGuide)

* Washington Post Digital, Fashion Week in New York City

* Washington Post Digital, Seeds of Peace
(ALSO: On KobreGuide)

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Small Site

* Ottawa Citizen, The Karsh Generation

* Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Women.Children.Crisis.

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Medium Site

* The Courier-Journal/courier-journal.com, Tragedy on the Track

* The Oregonian/OregonLive.com, Pregnant with Cancer

* Lane DeGregory, Melissa Lyttle, Desiree Perry, Jack Rowland & Ted McLaren, Tampabay.com, The Girl in the Window
(ALSO: On KobreGuide)

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Large Site

* The Boston Globe/Boston.com, Ted Kennedy

* Los Angeles Times, Mexico Under Siege: The Drug War at Our Doorstep

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Full list of finalists in all categories here.

Full list of winners in all categories here.

And for those patient enough to scroll all the way through these, here is a sampler of Slate V's winning entry, The Power Recap (Online Video Journalism, Large Site). It's only one of a series of six remarkably funny and clever high-speed glimpses of last year's Presidential race, so be sure to check out the others -- along with all the OJA finalsts and winners.

Online Journalism Awards Deadline: June 30

Hurry, this Tuesday (June 30) is the deadline for entering the Online Journalism Awards, administered by the Online News Association and its academic partner, the University of Miami's School of Communication.

There's a special category for Online Video Journalism:

This category honors excellence in online-originated video journalism crafted specifically for a Web audience. Emphasis will be placed on compelling narrative, originality and creative use of the medium. Entries may consist of a single story or up to three examples from a series related to a single topic and may be integrated with other multimedia tools. Slideshows in a video format are not eligible.

Two awards:
Small: 0-999,999 monthly uniques
Large: Over 1 million monthly uniques

Winners will be announced at the 2009 Online News Association Annual Conference and Awards Banquet, Oct. 3, at the Hilton San Francisco.

You can see past winners in this category on the Online Journalism Awards channel on KobreGuide.