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rediff.com has won the Online Journalism Award in the Breaking News category at the second annual Online Journalism Awards.
The prize was awarded to rediff.com for its coverage of the Gujarat earthquake.
The Online Journalism Awards honour excellence in Internet journalism and are administered by the Online News Association and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, home of the famed Pulitzer Prizes. This year, 870 entries from 15 countries was received and judged by a team of distinguished journalists.
Last year, rediff.com was nominated in the Breaking News category for its coverage of the Indian Airlines hijack for the first Online Journalism Awards, the only non-American, non-European site to be nominated in any category. However, rediff.com lost to CNETNews.com's coverage of the Microsoft breakup.
This year, rediff.com beat a field including Beliefnet (America Considers a Jewish Vice-President), CNETNews.com (Napster's Day in Court), Slashdot (EFF Files First Anti-DMCA Lawsuit) to win the award.
The judges called rediff's coverage 'incredibly comprehensive, with 12 to 15 stories a day on every angle of this major natural disaster, from the stories of the victims to the physics of the earthquake'. It's clear and complete, they said, 'with interviews, discussions and extensive information on how people in India and abroad could help. And all this on a true breaking news story, with no warning and no opportunity to prepare or plan coverage in advance.'
According to the Online Journalism Awards Web site this category honours the coverage of a spot- or breaking-news event or development that displays exceptional reporting. Clear presentation and a creative use of the medium are also considered. Entries consist of a single piece, series or package.
A two-step process was used to determine the finalists and the winners. First, a group of more than 100 international journalists, working remotely in teams of two, screened and narrowed the scores of entries in each category to a set of five to 10 nominees. These nominees were then reviewed by the OJA judges -- 16 journalists with extensive experience in new and old media -- who met at Columbia in early October to pick the finalists and the winners.
The judges included Tom Goldstein, dean, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism (co-chair); Rich Jaroslovsky, president, Online News Association & senior editor, The Wall Street Journal (co-chair); Bob Arnold, editor-in-chief, BusinessWeek Online; Marc Frons, editor & chief technology officer, SmartMoney.com; John Garcia, vice-president, interactive content and programming, NBC Stations Group, Rachel Hager, editorial director, digital business group, Reader's Digest Association, Dave Kansas, former editor-in-chief, TheStreet.com; David Laventhol, publisher, Columbia Journalism Review, Laura Miller, New York editorial director, Salon, Bill Mitchell, editor, Poynter.org, Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist, The Wall Street Journal, Lynn Povich, former managing editor, East Coast, MSNBC, Tom Rosenstiel, director, Project for Excellence in Journalism, Richard Stengel, editor, Time.com, Cyndi Stivers, president & editor-in-chief, Time Out New York, and Richard Wald, professor, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
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