By: E&P Staff Newsday, the News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.), ChicagoCrime.org, Minnesota Public Radio and the Interactive Magazine Online (IMOL) have been named finalists in the 2005 Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism.
The awards, which are administered by J-Lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism at the University of Maryland, recognize efforts at establishing new standards for interactive journalism that advance creativity in digital storytelling and challenge the traditional roles new organizations play in their communities.
A national panel of judges selected the five finalists from among 65 entries. The main winner, which will be announced Sept. 12 at the Batten Symposium at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., will receive $10,000. Second place will receive $2,000, and the three remaining finalists will receive $1,000 Awards of Distinction.
Newsday has been nominated for ?The Cost of War,? which is described as ?an extravaganza of detailed information and artful graphics about the U.S. effort in Iraq that set a new bar for telling fact-dense stories.?
The News & Record's ?Town Square? winning entry is ?a daring initiative to rethink the role of the newspaper in the community.?
ChicagoCrime.org merges a public crime database with Google?s online mapping technology to allow users to get a sense of a neighborhood?s relative safety through an easily searched and navigated interface.
Minnesota Public Radio's Public Insight Journalism, also a finalist, uses online software called the ?Idea Generator? to engage people in brainstorming public issues.
The Interactive Magazine Online's was awarded for The View, a quarterly magazine full of stories produced by journalists from England, the U.S. and South Africa using video-centric Web tools to tell personalized stories.
"We were impressed again this year with the range of talents and ideas presented -- from a collaboration of former broadcast professionals from Europe to the transformation of a newsroom in North Carolina to the wild idea of a lone innovator in Chicago" Bryan Monroe, chairman of the Batten Awards Advisory Board and Knight Ridder assistant vice president/news, said in a statement. "Prevailing themes were the increasing transparency, accessibility and democratization of news."
This year's Batten symposium will feature a keynote dialogue on participatory news with Michael Kinsley, Editorial and Opinion Editor of the Los Angeles Times, and Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. To attend the free Batten Symposium and luncheon, RSVP to
news@j-lab.org to reserve a spot or call 301-985-4020.
The Batten Awards and Symposium are funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. They honor the late James K. Batten, former CEO of Knight Ridder and a pioneer in exploring ways journalism could better connect with audiences.
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