What's the Best Online News Story You've Read Lately?

The entry deadline for the Online News Association's second annual Online Journalism Awards is less than a month away. Last year, almost all of the finalists and winners came from big, well-funded sites, possibly because of the $100 ($80 for ONA members) entry fee. This year I am going to try to level the playing field a little, and I need your help.

I'm asking you and your fellow Slashdot readers, "What's the best online news story you've read lately?" because last year I stood up during the awards ceremony and said I felt the entry fee was way too high (the Pulitzer Prize entry fee is only $50), especially for volunteer and non-profit news sites, many of which do excellent journalism even though they don't have the resources of an MSNBC, ABC News or major newspaper chain behind them.

Since I believe in putting my money where my mouth is, I offered to pay the entry fee next year for five deserving stories published by sites that couldn't otherwise afford to enter. Now it's "next year," and I'm keeping my promise. I would like to make sure the entries I sponsor (the money is coming out of my own pocket) have at least a fighting chance of winning, which means they need to be among the very best published anywhere, not just the best ones I've run across myself. Many eyeballs can make a big difference here.

Please take a look at the contest rules before you start posting your favorites to make sure they qualify, and in which category they should be entered.

I'll select the five entries I sponsor based on your comments, and next week I'll update this post with the titles and URLs of the chosen ones.

Comments

Some Stories of Note Since July 2000

[rcade]

It's hard to find worthy stories that aren't from publications that should have enough money to enter. However, here's a few good examples of online journalism from the rest of the Web:

• Commentary: Phil Agre's Election 2000 wrapup, which was sent Dec. 23, 2000, to subscribers to his Red Rock Eater Digest mailing list. No one tears into political jargon and other dissembling rhetoric the way Agre does, and this post-election contribution was widely forwarded around the Net after its publication.
• Feature Journalism: The Bleat by James Lileks, a daily column that's among the best feature writing in any medium, which is more impressive because his subject matter is nothing -- more specifically, the minutiae of his daily life, like movies, moving and odd yearbook discoveries.
• Commentary: Deb Weiss. Though her columns are hosted by the Drudge Report, Weiss is an amateur commentator who graduated from writing letters to the editor, not a professional. Though I disagree with her on every single political issue that matters, I have to admit that in columns like this Oct. 19, 2000, recap of the first Gore-Bush debate, Weiss rips into everyone to the left of Pat Buchanan with style, intelligence and savage wit.

Salon deserves it...

[cowboy junkie]

While I'm happy Slashdot supports the little guy, I personally don't have any problem rooting for Salon again, especially considering their financial state. Their coverage IMHO is as in-depth as any of the best traditional media sources like the NYTimes, but they consistently ask questions and tackle topics that most papers & tv won't touch. They also follow up on stories that the majors report that turn out to be completely bogus (like the whole Clinton staff trashes White House offices on departure bit).

Break out the tinfoil hats...

[Nurlman]

Full disclosure: I am a lawyer. I have also clerked for a federal judge (on the East Coast, not in Chicago).

The first half of the article was interesting, and, although I have not looked into the details of copyright law or the specifics of the case, it appears at first blush that Mr. Whatzizname might have a valid claim against Coke.

However, the second half of the article is little more than ill-informed, paranoid conjecture about the judge buying her seat on the federal bench, selective case assignments, the use of court security to intimidate people, a conspiracy by the 7th Circuit to squelch the "crusading lawyer," etc. Speaking as a lawyer, much, if not all, of these provacative events described in the second half of the article are all consistent with the normal and appropriate functioning of the federal court system.

I will be the first to admit that, unfortunately, legal proceedings often seem inscrutable to the layperson. However, laypeople should not be in such a hurry to ascribe sinister motives to every legal ruling or procedure that they do not understand. It's a pity that the "journalist" writing this article decided to rely primarily on the guidance of a "court reformer" and "electronic journalist" who obviously has an ax to grind against the judiciary, and is prone to making wild assertions of extravagant criminal conspiracies involving judges, the CIA, etc. etc., and then citing the absence of evidence supporting his assertions as proof of the effectiveness of the same conspiracies. I've got news for the author of the story: while my court might not have tossed the plaintiff's lawsuit against Coke as abruptly (maybe-- it's hard to say without seeing the papers), from the decsriptions in the article, it would have responded exactly as the trial judge did on all the subsequent proceedings. Does that mean that my court is in line with the CIA and Coke and the rest of the black helicopter brigade, too?

But to keep this on-topic, an online news story worth giving an award would try much harder to present a well-researched and balanced story, without resorting to the one-sided sensationalism that this one does. A real reporter would not only not adopt Mr. Skolnick's assertions that Judge Manning paid a million dollars for her seat on the bench, but would not even mention such an extraordinary claim without first attempting to verify through sources other than Mr. Skolnick. Any news story could be turned into an attention-grabber like this one by making vague innuendoes, failing to provide evidence to support the most outrageous claims, and mischaracterizing the consequences of particular acts, all of which this reporter repeatedly does. Keep in mind the addage that "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof" while you re-read parts 6-10 of that article.

These awards are for excellence in online journalism, not yellow journalism.

Investigative reporting

[Have Blue]

For Feature Journalism, GRC's report on DoS attacks and zombie bots. Any news article that contains the phrase "Attack-Neutered Mutant Zombies" definitely deserves some sort of award :P

Still Needs to Overcome the Big Media Bias

[zericm]

While I appluad Rob's efforts, he still faces an uphill battle to get smaller news sites the recognition they deserve. The biggest roadblock is not the large fee, but rather the judges and screeners. The Judges from last year:

• Tom Goldstein, dean, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism (co-chair)
• Rich Jaroslovsky, president, Online News Association & managing editor, The Wall Street Journal Online (co-chair)
• Kurt Andersen, co-founder and contributor, Inside.com and Inside Magazine
• Merrill Brown, editor-in-chief, MSNBC.com
• Red Burns, chair, Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
• Bill Kovach, chairman, Committee of Concerned Journalists
• David Laventhol, publisher, Columbia Journalism Review
• Jacqueline Leo, vice president and editorial director, Meredith Interactive
• Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist, The Wall Street Journal
• Stephen Shepard, editor-in-chief, Business Week
• E.R. Shipp, Columbia journalism professor and columnist, the New York Daily News

Six of the the judges are from large media outlets. This large media bias becomes more pronounced when you look at the list of screeners. These are the folks who select the web sites for consideration by the judges. ABC News, AOL-Time-Warner, Knigh-Ridder, NBC and Microsoft owned media appear to have the largest reresentation. In addition, there are the other big media usual suspects: Fox, Bloomberg, NY Times, LA Times, CBS, Hearst, etc. You get the idea.

Given big media's open hostility to on-line and independent journalism, why should we expect this collection of judges and screeners to be receptive to news sources that raise questions about the relevance and supremecy of the media conglomerates?

Getting fired from Atom Films

[typical geek]

On the cutting edge alternative news site, Geekizoid, by the charming Shoeboy.

Parts of it were posted in Troll Talk, originally.

Register's CPRM Story

[KilljoyAZ]

For the category of "Enterprise Journalism," I would say that the most important story broken last year was the Register's CPRM story (from a geek perspective, anyways). Catching media companies in the act of trying to destroy open computer standards through the backdoor was pretty impressive, and I doubt you'd find reporters from MSNBC digging around in T13 conference minutes for the dirt.

That's my two cents. Feel free to disagree :)

Coke Karma

[gnovos]

If it hasn't been said yet, Coke Karma (http://www.guerrillanews.com/cocakarma/) wasn't too bad. Long, though.