Finalists:
washingtonpost.com
startribune.com

chicagotribune.com built a news operation that covers every important news story in metropolitan Chicago throughout the day: a team of Internet reporters and editors devoted to covering breaking local news was assembled, and the newspaper's huge metropolitan reporting staff was enticed to contribute. Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune's newsroom made a major commitment to the Web operation, not fearing to break stories online long before they appeared in the newspaper.

chicagotribune.com gives their users up-to-the-minute, relevant, useful Chicago news, while upholding the same high standards of accuracy and excellence that have always characterized the Chicago Tribune.

What the judges said:

"This is an outstanding site, providing excellent depth and breadth of content; a wide assortment of ways for users to interact with the site, ranging from dozens (hundreds?) of message boards to smaller-scale applications that are just plain fun."

"Certainly one of the top online newspapers in the U.S. Smooth, straightforward, easy to use."

Superb news focus, pulling the very best strengths from the Chicago Tribune in every respect, combined with a solid economic base and exciting use of multimedia applications."

Best Overall U.S. Newspaper Online Service, Circulation under 100,000

Christian Science Monitor's Electronic Edition
http://www.csmonitor.com

Finalists:
Syracuse Online
Naples Daily News Online

The Christian Science Monitor has made a name for itself over the years for its analytical and in-depth approach to the news. Its format provides an in-depth approach to important news, which brings together current pieces by the paper's staff, supported by audio interviews, background pieces from its archive, original graphical material, and often original pieces contributed by its team of online columnists.

Most stories offer polls, access to forums, original audio interviews, or links to other stories in the paper or in their archives. The Monitor is one of the few online newspaper sites that offers an e-mail link to the writer of each story and many feature pieces. And the Monitor's electronic edition has the deepest archive on the Web: users can access all Monitor stories back to 1980.

What the judges said:

"Content is deep, deep, deep and exceptionally well organized and compartmentalized."

"The Monitor makes great use of interactivity. . . . this one covers its local community (the world) very well."

Best Overall U.S. Newspaper Online Service — Weekly, Community, Free & alternative

Orlando Weekly
http://www.orlandoweekly.com

Finalists:
The Chronicle of Higher Education - Acadme Today
Education on the Web

orlandoweekly.com is the first media-produced site in central Florida to offer true e-commerce solutions to local merchants. An example is Orlando Music Awards, which integrates interactivity, multimedia, and e-commerce through online voting, band profiles, and online ticket and merchandise sales through an online store.

Enhanced navigation saves download time. Improved Message Boards now feature thread tracking, e-mail capabilities, and search functionality. Online columnists feature integrated archives and message-board participation. And Orlando Weekly continues to have the best entertainment coverage in Central Florida, with profiles of thousands of local events and festivals, movie reviews and theatre information, and over 350 restaurant reviews. The "Arts & Culture" section is home to a weekly column, "Afterwords," which proved so popular online, it now appears in the print edition.

What the judges said:

"Excellent newspaper site. Customization features are particularly impressive."

"It's a solid, deep city guide and an entertaining news site. Interface is clean and efficient, not flashy."

"A model for online alternative newspapers nationwide. Its personalization, email alerting, and search features are state-of-the art."

Best Overall Non-U.S. Newspaper Online Service

ft.com (Financial Times, Pearson Group)
http://www.ft.com

Finalists:
South China Morning Post
The Times of India

1999 saw ft.com, the Financial Times Web site, consolidate its position as the premier site for international business news, comment, analysis and data. Traffic more than tripled during the year, to almost 20 million page views a month, making it one of the five most popular non-US based English language news sites on the Web and the leading one for business and finance. ft.com now has more than 2 million registered users in all 230 countries in the world.

The most significant change of the year happened behind the scenes. ft.com created an integrated print and electronic newsroom, pioneering a course to keep ft.com at the forefront. By combining the integrity, authority, accuracy and global perspective that are the editorial hallmarks of the Financial Times with the immediacy, depth and interactivity of the Web, ft.com has created a Web site that is without peer.

What the judges said:

"It aims at highly specialized readership and is right on target more often than not. It is also quite ambitious in its coverage and in its plans for the future."

"A world-class site that only gets better every year."

Best Non-Newspaper Online Service

MSNBC Online
http://www.msnbc.com

Finalists:
Wired News
Cnet News.com

As a leader in breaking news and original journalism on the Internet, MSNBC.com additionally delivers the best of NBC News, MSNBC Cable, CNBC and NBC Sports. MSNBC.com provides expanded content via partnerships with Ziff Davis, The Wall Street Journal, MSN Money Central, The Sporting News, Expedia, and APB Online. Providing live and on-demand audio/video, MSNBC.com takes a leadership position in the delivery of high-speed content and interactive services in addition to 24/7 programming ITV with MSNBC Cable.

Their news organization includes hundreds of award-winning reporters and editors as well as a multidisciplinary team of interactive and multimedia producers. With correspondents around the globe, MSNBC.com has domestic bureaus throughout the country in addition to an international news gathering team headquartered in London.

What the judges said:

"As a personalized news service, it is truly the premier customized portal — not only for its ability to give you what you need when you need it, but for making it a painless experience."

"Personalization of the news by ZIP code. . . this is just a great overall news site."

Best College Newspaper Online Service

NewsNet (Brigham Young University)
http://wwwnewsnet.byu.edu

Finalists:
Lobo Link (University of New Mexico)
The Angle (Unitersity of Virginia)

NewsNet@BYU is the online student news service for the Brigham Young University Community and is maintained by a combination of paid and volunteer students who produce all editorial and advertising content.

The site is updated continuously, and includes all content from the student newspaper, The Daily Universe, as well as original content produced by a staff of student Web editors and reporters. Also included are live, 30-minute audio and video netcasts of the student TV news program each weekday. Other features of the site are email briefs that give subscribers headlines. A custom screen saver brings the news to a subscriber's desktop and is armed with hotlinks that automatically launch the user's browser for complete versions of all Web site content.

What the judges said:

"Very, very professional."

"Professional, easy-to-use, newsy site. Noteworthy are the continuing audio and video news programs throughout the day."

Best Promotion of a Newspaper Online Service

Metromix
http://metromix.com

Finalists:
postnet.com
globecareers.com

In 1998, the Chicago Tribune launched Metromix, Chicago's complete entertainment source. Metromix continues to grow and is the premier entertainment Web site in Chicago. Primarily targeting the market's 18-34 year-olds, the marketing staff took the word to the streets — reaching young, hip, entertainment-oriented consumers where they live and play.

The Metromix brand was built through street marketing campaigns, events, demos at universities, publications, broadcast and key partnerships. After tremendous growth during their initial award-winning marketing campaign in 1998, Metromix.com has seen even more growth in 1999. With a media blitz at summer events in Chicago, there was no online summer slowdown at Metromix.com. Page views in the third-quarter of '99 saw a 55% jump from the previous quarter and 300% growth from the previous year's third quarter.

What the judges said:

"This was terrific — an example for the rest of the industry of how to be taken seriously online. Well done in every way. "

The best with a difference: strategy, media used, types of promotions, and marketing products."

"The scope, the attitude, the quality, the giveaways. This is a stellar campaign, catchy ads with a lot of information about why you'd want to go online. The targeted campaigns to the University audience are to the point and know the audience. This is a high quality online advertising campaign that clearly brought in the desired results."

Best News Section in a Newspaper Online Service

washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com

Finalists:
News Unlimited (Guardian Newspapers Ltd., United Kingdom)
boston.com

washingtonpost.com, winner of last year's EPpy for best news section in a newspaper online service, has expanded its rich heritage with the addition of PM Extra. PM Extra is the best news section in a newspaper online service and a creative answer to the question of how newspapers can make themselves relevant in new media. The articles in this section are new, newsy, and almost always written by The Washington Post's prize-winning journalists in contrast with the same wire-service journalism that populates many other news and portal sites.

What the judges said:

"This continues to be an outstanding news site, offering not only extensive hard news coverage but also a wide range of innovative features that make excellent use of the medium's capabilities."

"The Post is still state-of-the-art for the news, as it has been for the past two years. Its GUI also is probably the best in the business."

Best Sports Section in a Newspaper Online Service

Jacksonville.com (The Florida Times-Union)
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/sports

Finalists:
Sports Extra @ ireland.com (The Irish Times)
Sports Day (The Dallas Morning News)

Jacksonville.com's sports section offers outstanding information for its users. The strengths of these sections are interactivity and in-depth statistical information. Jacksonville.com's sports section is focused heavily on local and regional teams, yet also provides readers national headlines for all sports. Another feature is the opportunity to interact with each story via a story comment message board or to e-mail the story to a friend.

Outstanding graphics and design elements set Jacksonville.com's sports section apart from many others.

What the judges said:

"Jacksonville.com does the best job of taking advantage of unique Web capabilities as well as providing thorough coverage of local and national sports."

Best Business Section in a Newspaper Online Service

ft.com (Financial Times, Pearson Group)
http://www.ft.com

Finalists:
Maine Business Online
Mercury Center's SiliconValley.com

ft.com's coverage of international business is unparalleled on the Web. ft.com takes a distinctly global view and aims at decision-makers around the world: its day starts when the Asian markets open and ends at the close of business on the West Coast.

ft.com edits to give a sense of priority, meaning and context to a world drowning in information. A high store is set on the accuracy, authority, and integrity of reporting and the insight and expertise of analysis.

Delivering on these ambitions draws on an extensive worldwide network of correspondents and industry specialists. This gives ft.com the ability to cover the full range of 14 global industries at a standard of expertise and excellence that no other Web site can match.

What the judges said:

"The information content is comprehensive. . . exhaustive."

"Great job of doing worldwide coverage all day. Comprehensive and complete site."

Best Entertainment Section in a Newspaper Online Service

postnet.com (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
http://www.postnet.com/entertainment

Finalists:
GuideLive (The Dallas Morning News/Belo Interactive)
Mercury Center's Just Go

Postnet.com is the definitive online guide to the St. Louis arts and entertainment scene. As the local cultural authority, postnet.com's dynamic "Arts and Entertainment" section provides incredible depth of content that is easy and fun to use!

The section features a fully searchable calendar with more than 3,000 metro St. Louis events. Both the calendar and daily best bets include mapping, directions, online ticketing and reviews. The EventWatcher feature notifies registered users when their favorite shows or performers are coming to town. There are interactive opportunities including forums and live chats hosted by the newspaper's A&E critics. Of course, visitors will also find the usual comics, horoscopes and breaking news that they love, and it's all wrapped up in a clean, fun design.

What the judges said:

"The most comprehensive list of categories and links of all the entries. One scan provides a superb overview of all related events, along with succinct annotation. Clearly the winner!"

Best Special Section in a Newspaper Online Service

TheDailyCamera.com
http://www.BoulderNews.com/shooting

Finalists:
EUD.com (Diario El Universal, Venezuela)
Mercury Center's SiliconValley.com: The Cost of Living in Silicon Valley

TheDailyCamera.com's "Tragedy at Columbine" coverage debuted within minutes after gunfire was reported on police scanners. Up-to-the-minute coverage continued for 72 hours. Short, immediate, and to-the-point staff-written updates were posted on the site every 10 minutes, along with every available story from the newsroom and the wire.

Initial comparisons with the Denver metros showed TheDailyCamera.com's coverage far surpassed the competition on the Web. Within six hours of the shooting, TheDailyCamera.com offered a timeline chronology, graphics, maps, and a photo essay that detailed the anguish. And, with the fast-paced nature of the shooting and the coverage that followed, TheDailyCamera.com understood the necessity of integrity. Because of the sensitivity of the incident, the site made doubly sure to be careful updating to avoid any sensationalism or the posting of unverified information.

What the judges said:

"Great overall content, well organized, navigable, great response to breaking news."

"Comprehensive."

"The site has a dramatic impact on the Internet user, even after so many months. The text, photographs, audio, and interactive voting draw the user in."

Best Classified Section in a Newspaper Online Service

Chicago Tribune Homes
http://chicago.tribune.com/homes

Finalists:
WashingtonJobs on washingtonpost.com
Globecareers.com (Globe Information Services, Canada)

Home buyers and sellers use the Chicago Tribune Internet Edition to find more homes and more about homes than ever. The home page is a gateway to search engines and to current and archived Tribune content. The for-sale search has been rebuilt for greater reliability: it now combines newspaper classifieds with regional Multiple Listing Services in a single search. News features, community data, and online maps are incorporated into search results.

The real estate transactions database has been rebuilt as well. Sales are posted online before print publication, and online records extend to 1993. Community profiles now cover some 400 Chicago suburbs and city neighborhoods, augmented with annually updated school scores, crime rates and housing values.

What the judges said:

"Pleasantly designed with comfortable color matching, this Home site is basically a search engine. The search results are well displayed. The unique Closing Price should be valuable information to homebuyers."

"Very good access to classifieds in the real estate niche. The search facilities and linked photographs are easy to use."

Best Community Publishing Effort in a Newspaper Online Service

Syracuse Online
http://www.syracuse.com/cc

Finalists:
timesunion.com Community Partners Program (Times Union, Albany, N.Y.)
Tween Times (The Times of India Group of Publications)

This fast-growing community site goes a step beyond the pattern for the industry, where these self-published pages are often buried in a corner of a site. Syracuse Online breaks the mold by integrating its community-published pages into the fabric of the site, from the homepage to high school team pages to fire, police and ambulance agencies.

What the judges said:

"In a word: AMAZING! Great content, integration, community services, and local flavour."

"Excellent. Top-notch site."

Best Directory Application in a Newspaper Online Service

Restaurant Metropolis on metrotimes.com
http://restaurants.metrotimes.com

Finalists:
IndiaTimes (The Times of India Group of Publications)
lasvegas.com (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

With comprehensive information about over a thousand area eateries, Restaurant Metropolis is The Metro Times' powerful, interactive Web guide to metro-Detroit dining. Restaurant Metropolis is searchable by cuisine, location and more; it also features hundreds of in-depth reviews from MT food journalists. A different local restaurant review is featured on the front page each week, plus every restaurant has its own uniquely informative page.

Best of all, pages in Restaurant Metropolis are free. Restaurants can sign up online for their free basic page. Furthermore, Restaurant Metropolis is integrated with our What's Happening event calendar, allowing readers to find out more about a given restaurant whenever it hosts an event.

What the judges said:

"Excellent, simple, quite useful guide to Detroit area restaurants. Does a good job of integrating print content with the listings."

Best Design of a Newspaper Online Service

Guardian Unlimited (Guardian Newspapers Ltd., United Kingdom)
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk

Finalists:
Jacksonsville.com (The Florida Times-Union)
timesunion.com (Times Union, Albany, N.Y.)

Guardian Unlimited appointed design guru Neville Brody, one of the finest graphic designers in Britain, to provide a crisp, elegant, functional design for the network. The result was a design that provided a cohesive brand identity across all The Guardian's Web sites, now commonly referred to as 'The Brody Blocks,' combined with clear, consistent navigation and functionality of the sites.

Guardian Unlimited's Web Art Director, Ben Wuersching, has taken Brody's core design to new heights. Through its design Guardian Unlimited stands apart from other newspapers on the Internet. Rather than replicating the visual tone of the paper onto the Web, Guardian Unlimited has its own original visual identity, demonstrating bold innovation as well as leading the field in using the technical attributes of the Web to their full advantage.

What the judges said:

"Very well designed — and different. Thanks for a breath of fresh air in this category."

"This site is simple, clean, clear, extremely easy to use. A unique design well done."

"This goes to show what you can get when you're willing to spend big bucks on a hot designer (Neville Brody). He's done a stunning job."

Best Use of Interactivity in a Newspaper Online Service

Live Online on washingtonpost.com
http://washingtonpost.com/liveonline

Finalists:
Sunline (Sun Herald)
The Oklahoman Online (The Daily Oklahoman)

Live Online gives washingtonpost.com readers a unique opportunity to communicate daily, in real time, with Washington Post reporters, columnists, editors and the newspaper's top management. Readers can also submit questions and comments to newsmakers, politicians, public officials, authors and experts in fields ranging from medicine and health to sports and gardening.

In addition to its popular regular programs, Live Online also responds aggressively to breaking news. Past Q&A sessions have featured experts talking with readers about national and local politics, hurricanes, earthquakes, and international events. This year, Live Online gave readers around the globe the real-time opportunity to interact with Post reporters and guests in New Zealand, Albania, Belgrade, Belfast, Tel Aviv, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Tokyo, Beijing, Delhi, Moscow, Jakarta, London, Trinidad, Barbados, and — for a special report on the eclipse — from Iran.

What the judges said:

"Live Online is terrific and its archives are a treasure. What a wonderful resource. This is worth promoting."

"This is 'chat' done right. The Post can be seen truly utilizing its reporters and editors for all they're worth. The Post recognizes the fluidity and unpredictability of the online medium and has addressed that by posting representatives (or sentinels) at the gates to usher people — and eyeballs — in. It's not enough to simply host message boards or a chat — you need to create value around that interaction. The Post has achieved this, simply and comprehensively."

Best Shopping Application in a Newspaper Online Service

Shopping on washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/shopping

Finalists:
lasvegas.com hotel casino guide (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Marketplace (KnightRidder.com)

washingtonpost.com's Shopping has grown from an interactive comparison-shopping tool into the most innovative, full-service, consumer-focused shopping experience of any newspaper online service. Shopping offers impressive consumer services including Inktomi's comparison shopping engine, promotional deals from Impulse Buy, product guides from Consumers Digest Online, convenient Yellow Pages local merchant search capabilities, and online merchant listings by retail categories.

In October 1999, the site introduced contextual "Shopping Boxes" — promotional space offering products related to editorial content. For example, a user visiting washingtonpost.com's OnPolitics site will find a Shopping Box offering a politically-oriented item for sale. Shopping Boxes will be placed on each washingtonpost.com page, except the front page of the site. Over 50 million Shopping Box impressions are planned per month featuring hundreds of product offers!

What the judges said:

"Top notch."

Outstanding Individual Achievement

Steve Outing

Steve Outing is one of the newspaper industry's most influential thinkers and writers about the Internet — and the opportunity it presents for print media. The winner of the 2000 EPpy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement is a journalist, an internationally known expert on interactive media/online journalism, a media analyst and consultant, and an Internet entrepreneur.

"I hope that my writing has helped traditional newspeople think outside the box," Outing said in a recent interview. "I've tried to expose them to ideas that may help them successfully and profitably cross the bridge from traditional to digital publishing."

Outing is truly a multimedia communicator: his insightful and thought-provoking writings reach audiences through a number of outlets. Since 1995, he has written the popular "Stop The Presses!" column for Editor & Publisher Online. He is also the "ePublishing" columnist for Writer's Digest magazine, while serving on the editorial advisory board of the magazine.

He has written research reports for Jupiter Communications and E&P, and he is the owner and host of the three most popular Internet discussion forums about new media — Online-Writing, Online-News and Online-Newspapers — where he influences thousands of decision makers every week in the business of interactive newspapering.

"I can't say I'm keeping up with my industry if I let more than a day or two go by without checking Steve's listserv," said one EPpy judge, referring to the popular Internet forums. "His impact on the industry cannot be overestimated."

Outing is president of Content Exchange LLC, a digital marketplace for online content creators and publishers, and president of Planetary News, an interactive media research and consulting firm. But it is the impact of his words, not his titles, that explains his influence on the interactive newspaper industry.

Outing's first newspaper job was in 1978, when he became a copy editor with the Boulder, Colo., Daily Camera. Over the next 15 years, he also worked at the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle.

He discovered the online world in 1990, when he got a CompuServe account. Two years later, he became aware of the Internet and was soon hooked. "I was convinced that this [the Internet] was something important to the future of media," Outing said. He left the Chronicle in late 1993 to pursue a career as an independent writer/consultant specializing in the intersection of the Internet and the news industry.

A year later, in 1994, Outing founded the Online-News and Online-Newspapers Internet discussion lists, serving the then-fledgling online news community. The lists have attracted as regular participants some of the best minds in this business, and the discussion on these lists has often been an early indicator of how the online news industry would develop. Today there are 1,500 members of Online-News and 550 of Online-Newspapers. And in 1998, he started another forum called Online-Writing, which addresses the broader online content field and now has 1,800 members.

Outing lives in Boulder, Colo., with wife Suzanne and their daughters Shannon, 7, and Lauren, 2.

Editor's note: Like all EPpy Awards, The Outstanding Individual Achievement Award is chosen by an independent panel of industry leaders.