In a year marked by momentous events such as the Arab Spring and distressing disasters like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the list includes heavyweights such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and BBC News.

Al Jazeera is also up for two awards, as are a host of Canadian news outlets such as CBC News, the Globe and Mail, Global News, the Vancouver Sun and the new media start-up OpenFile.

I am very pleased that the investigative work of our journalism students at the University of British Columbia has been recognised. The school is nominated for Cheap Shrimp, Hidden Costs in the Online Video Journalism, small site, category.

The results will be announced at the 2011 ONA Conference and Online Journalism Awards Banquet on Saturday, Sept. 24, at the Marriott Copley Place in Boston.

Here is the full list to check out:

Knight Award for Public Service
Assault on Learning – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Barnegat Bay Under Stress – Asbury Park Press
Breach of Faith – Los Angeles Times
Deadly Neglect – Chicago Tribune
On Shaky Ground – California Watch and Center for Investigative Reporting

Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism
Flipboard
Power to the People: Voter Education for All – e-thePeople
ScraperWiki
ScribbleLive

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Micro Site
NJ Spotlight
OnEarth
The Tiziano Project
Yale Environment 360

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Small Site
California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting
FRONTLINE
ProPublica
The Texas Tribune
voiceofsandiego.org – Voice of San Diego

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Medium Site
CBC News
Las Vegas Sun
NewsOK / The Oklahoman
The Globe and Mail

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Large Site
Al Jazeera
BBC News
The New York Times
The Wall Street Journal

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Non-English, Small Site
El Nuevo Herald.com
Il Tirreno
OWNI

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Non-English, Large Site
20minutos
G1 – Portal de Notícias da Globo
LA NACION

Breaking News, Small Site
Aggregation Breaking News – Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami 2011 – ProducerMatthew.com
A Snow Storm Hits New York and WNYC Listeners Map the Cleanup – WNYC Radio
Slave Lake Wildfires in Northern Alberta – Global News
Stanley Cup Hockey Riots in Vancouver – The Vancouver Sun

Breaking News, Large Site
Congresswoman Shot – The Associated Press
Coverage of the Uprisings in Egypt – Al Jazeera
Japan Earthquake – Wall Street Journal
The Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Crisis in Japan – The New York Times

Specialty Site Journalism, Affiliated
NPR Music – NPR
Pipeline – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/post-gazette.com
The Civil Rights Cold Case Project – Center for Investigative Reporting, Paperny Films
USA TODAY Travel – USA TODAY

Specialty Site Journalism, Independent
edweek.org – Education Week, Editorial Projects in Education
IEEE Spectrum – Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism, Small Site
Dialysis – ProPublica
Dollars for Doctors – ProPublica
Lifesaving Drugs, Deadly Consequences — InvestigateWest
On Shaky Ground – California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting
The Truth Left Behind: Inside the Kidnapping and Murder of Daniel Pearl: Pearl Project, sponsored by Georgetown University and the Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
Breakdown: Traveling Dangerously in America – National News 21 and The Center for Public Integrity

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism, Large Site
Breach of Faith – Los Angeles Times
OTL: Painkiller Misuse Numbs NFL Pain – ESPN
Top Secret America – The Washington Post
What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince? – Slate

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Small Site
Apart from War – News21 Team at Syracuse University
Crisis Guide: Pakistan – Council on Foreign Relations/MediaStorm
The Poppy File – OpenFile, ninth+crux

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Medium Site
Exile Without End: Palestinians in Lebanon – CBC News, Radio-Canada, ALT Digital Design Studio
The ’60 Bucs (Parts 4-7) – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Large Site
A Year at War – The New York Times
Quieting Dylan’s Brain – Los Angeles Times
Traumatic Brain Injury: Coming Home a Different Person – The Washington Post

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Student
Global Warning – Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University
Haiti’s Lost Children – University of Miami
Now What Argentina – University of North Carolina & Universidad Pontifica de Argentina
Vwa Fanm: Stories on Statelessness and Migration – Knight Center for International Media

Online Topical Reporting/Blogging, Small Site
Doctors Behaving Badly: Shedding Light on Poor Doctor Oversight by Medical Boards – William Heisel, ReportingonHealth.org
Ecotrope: Fresh Ideas on Nature and Community – Oregon Public Broadcasting and NPR
MindShift: How We Will Learn – KQED and NPR
OpenSecrets.org
Persian Letters – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Online Topical Reporting/Blogging, Medium Site
Casey Anthony Extended Coverage – WESH
Nancy Leson’s All You Can Eat blog – The Seattle Times
The Closing of the Sahara – Las Vegas Sun
Ward Room – NBCChicago.com

Online Topical Reporting/Blogging, Large Site
CNN Belief Blog – CNN Digital
How Are Local Municipalities Impacted by The Great Recession – Will Alden, The Huffington Post
SciGuy – Eric Berger, Houston Chronicle
Social Media Coverage – Helen Popkin, msnbc.com

Online Commentary/Blogging, Small Site
Online Commentary/Blogging, Medium Site
No finalists selected in either category

Online Commentary/Blogging, Large Site
Arianna Huffington – The Huffington Post
LZ Granderson – CNN Digital
Providing A Voice of Authority for the Everyman – Peter S. Goodman, The Huffington Post
Simon Says – Roger Simon, Politico

Outstanding Informational Graphic or Data Visualization, Professional
California Budget Balancer – Los Angeles Times
Crime L.A. – Los Angeles Times
Tell-All Telephone – Zeit Online

Outstanding Informational Graphic or Data Visualization, Student
No finalists selected

Online Video Journalism, Small Site
Cheap Shrimp, Hidden Costs – The University of British Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
Powering a Nation: Spilling Over – UNC News21
The Price of Gas – Center for Investigative Reporting, California Watch
When the Water Ends – Yale Environment 360

Online Video Journalism, Medium Site
Exile Without End: Palestinians in Lebanon – CBC News, Radio-Canada, ALT Digital Design Studio
Life on the Line – The Toronto Star

Online Video Journalism, Large Site
Caught in the Crossfire: Victims of Gang Violence – Los Angeles Times
Chasing the Swell – Los Angeles Times
Torn Apart – San Jose Mercury News
Video Portraiture – New York Times Magazine

Online Video Journalism, Student
Florida Cowboys – University of Miami
Giants of the Seas: Jamaica Meets the Mega-Ships – University of Miami
Haiti’s Lost Children – University of Miami
Now What Argentina – University of North Carolina and Universidad Pontifica de Argentina
The World Journalism Project – S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University

Community Collaboration
Hurricane Katrina, Then and Now – CNN Digital
Overtown: Inside/Out – University of Miami School of Communication, University of Illinois School of Media, Stretch Photography, LLC
Social Media’s Arab Spring – Andy Carvin, NPR
The Tiziano Project | 360 Kurdistan – The Tiziano Project

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The project was the work of the International Reporting class led by my friend and colleague, Peter Klein.

10 students travelled to Thailand to uncover the economic, social and environmental cost of North America’s appetite for all you can eat platters of cheap shrimp.

The investigation published in partnership with with the Globe and Mail. We also produced a micro-site, which I was involved in supervising, that highlights different aspects of the story. As Peter explains in the Mediashift article:

This project was really well suited for a multimedia piece. There are several distinct themes we addressed, and in a linear TV piece we would have had to do awkward transitions between these themes. In this project, we were able to separate out the themes and address them as individual video clips.

The project is an example of a growing trend of partnerships between major news organizations and universities. It highlights the role of journalism schools as homes for investigative reporting projects.

These kinds of partnerships are evolving as news outlets, foundations and journalism schools pool their resources, particularly at a time when established media are devoting fewer resources to investigative reporting.

To get a taste of the project, here is the video on the health costs:

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In a research paper, he and co-author Arthur Santana studied whether the industry wants every journalist to have cross-platform skills.

In a survey of 210 US newspapers, he found that different members of the newsrooms rated skills differently.

Russial argued that if role convergence was real, then newsrooms would share a common view of the essential journalism skills of staff.

The most role-convergence was among the online staff, who tend to work across media as a rule.

The survey also found a slight increase in the creation of video by newspapers. But most were online doing a few video reports a week.  And this was mostly done by photographers.

Russial suggested that there was movement towards cross platform work but questioned if this was as extensive as some might believe.

The study found that convergence of skills was taking place in the online parts of the newsroom, but much less elsewhere

Russial concluded that job specialisation remained the dominant organizing principle, with editors prizing depth rather than breadth.

Change, he suggested, was taking place in newsrooms but not on internet speed.

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I will be explaining how we created and launched the student publication, TheThunderbird.ca, at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism.

We use WordPress for the site, using a number of plugins to extend its functionality. Here are the ones I will mention in my presentation:

Multimedia:

• Embed audio: Audio Player 2.0
• Create photo galleris with nextGen Gallery
• Embed video easily: Viper’s Video Quicktags

Get social:

• Social bookmarking: ShareThis
• Tweet and track: TweetMeme
• Be findable: All in one SEO

Under the hood:

• Manage your users: Role Manager
• Create a sitemap: Google XML sitemaps generator
• Backup your site: WordPress Database Backup

Tools:

• Keep track of visits: Ultimate Google Analytics
• Learn about the audience: Statpress Reloaded
• Fight spam: Akismet

These are just a handful of the plugins available for WordPress. The list is intended as a starting point for journalism educators planning or overseeing a student website.

If there is a plugin that you find essential, please add it in the comments.

If you are at the AEJMC conference, please come along to the session on August 4 from 1:30 to 3:45 pm.

Links from the session will be posted on delicious, and handouts will be also put online. The Twitter tag for the panel is #aejmcsite

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Dan Gillmor has expressed concerns about Apple’s ability to decide what appears on the iTunes store and hence the iPad.

I asked Ethan Zuckerman of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, and a co-founder of Global Voices, for his thoughts on the issue:

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31 essential online tools for journalist

FoJ09 talk: Twitter as a system of ambient journalism

How to find out anything about anyone online

Twitter CEO sees journalists as curators

Social networking sites challenge journalist

10 top tech trends that every journalist

Video: Gina Trapani makes sense of Google

The new roles for journalists in a multimedia world

Create a breaking news site in minutes with WordPress

The skills every journalist needs

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and I wish you all a joyful and prosperous 2010.

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The darling of the year, Twitter, came top.  Other valuable tools in the top 10 are Delicious, YouTube, Google Reader, Google Docs, WordPress, Slideshare, Google Search, Audacity and Firefox.

I, for one, find all of these pretty indispensable. Are they part of your classroom or your newsroom?

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In her presentation at the Future of Journalism conference in Cardiff, she outlined what skills and attributes were mentioned in job listings.

They found 715 job postings. In newspapers, a third of them for reporters and just 12% for web writers/multimedia producers.

In postings for reporter positions, the most common skill was previous professional experience and strong writing. Around half cited web and multimedia skills.

On the TV side, the most common job posting was producer, around 20% and under 10% of postings for web writer/multimedia producer.

For broadcast, previous experience and strong writing were both highly desirable attributes. But missing from the top five attributes in broadcast were web/multimedia skills.

Web skills were the highly important for newspapers but not in broadcast, found Wenger.

But there are signs of change. For example, Gannett has developed a set of reporter expectations, which included covering breaking stories for multiple platforms, regardless of the type of job.

Overall, Wenger concluded, traditional skills like strong writing and working to tight deadlines remain important to US news employees.

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María Teresa Ronderos, Editor of Semana.com from Colombia showed some of the site’s impressive work in using multimedia to explore and explain different types of stories.

Semana.com put together an in-depth on the FARC rebels. It also sought to use multimedia to explain complex issues, such as a in-depth on paramilitary involvement in politics.

Ronderos also showed how Semana used multimedia to bring to life dry statistics about the number of people living on the streets of Bogota.

The site is also experimenting with using multimedia as profile pieces, where users click on the different parts of the body to learn different things about a person. Or using multimedia to reflect geographical information.

For her, this reporting rivals the traditional long-form print in-depth report.  Multimedia can make a difficult story accessible and journalists have to choose what works best in what medium.

Ronderos said we are creating new narratives, but, in her words, we are still in the stone ages.

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In the interview by Nieman Journalism Lab, Murray talks about what he looks for when in online reporters:

In the digital area, you do want people who can be very fast and are willing to, you know, post multiple times a day and to multitask.

An additional skill is know how to market your work, balancing “maximum search engine hits” and producing something that  “that’s uniquely valuable”.

Essentially Murray is talking about journalism plus.

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