Spain made a big impresson at the Online News Association awards, picking up the two awards that non-English websites were eligible for.
Elpais.com took the newly created award for general excellence by a large non-English site. Its compatriot, Soitu.es, won the general excellence title for small site.
One is an example of how a print newspaper is reinventing itself online. The other is a an independent, web-only new site, just eight months old.
The two sites showcase the great online journalism taking place outside North America and a recognition by the ONA that the web does not end at America’s borders.
The nominees for the ONA awards were heavily dominated by US sites, but Canada’s The Globe and Mail, made an impact by picking up a trophy for its Talking to the Taliban special report. A French site, Geo, also won for its English language entry, The Hidden World.
As an international member of the ONA said, the international winners serve as advocates of the organisation’s new openness to the rest of the world.
It is now up to the new director of the ONA, Jane McDonnell, to ensure the organisation becomes a truly global grouping of the best in online journalism.
(The full list of winners was not up on the ONA site at the time of posting, but some of them are on AFP’s Mediawatch, en Francais evidamment).
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