Major US news organisations dominated the 2010 Online Journalism Awards, handed out at the Online News Association annual conference in Washington, DC. msnbc.com took General Excellence in Online Journalism for a large site and CNN.com won breaking news for its Haiti earthquake coverage. NPR took two of the technology categories — the Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism for its API, and Outstanding Use of Emerging Platforms for its mobile applications.
The more telling part of the list was underneath the large sites. The Tennessean won breaking news for its Nashville flood coverage; the West Seattle Blog, describing itself as the neighbourhood’s only 24/7 news source, took community collaboration; and general excellence went to The Texas Tribune in the small-site category and to California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting in the micro-site category. Investigative work carried the Gannett Foundation awards: the New York Times for Toxic Waters, and ProPublica with the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Frontline for Law and Disorder. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s Flipping Fraud took the Knight Award for Public Service.
Two things stand out from a distance. An API and a set of mobile apps were being judged as journalism rather than as plumbing, and the non-profit and single-neighbourhood outfits — California Watch, the Texas Tribune, a Seattle blog — were competing in the same ceremony as the networks.