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

Posted by Roblimo on from the giving-the-little-guys-a-chance dept.

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.

5 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Investigative reporting by Have+Blue · · Score: 5

    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

  2. Still Needs to Overcome the Big Media Bias by zericm · · Score: 5

    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?

    --
    The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants. - Albert Camus
  3. Getting fired from Atom Films by typical+geek · · Score: 5

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

    Parts of it were posted in Troll Talk, originally.

  4. Register's CPRM Story by KilljoyAZ · · Score: 5

    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 :)

    --
    This .sig is currently on hiatus for retooling.
  5. Coke Karma by gnovos · · Score: 5

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

    --
    "Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"