2012 Awards

Knight Award for Public Service

Winner:

• Homicide Watch D.C.

Finalist:

• Abused and Used, The New York Times
• Broken Shield, California Watch and Center for Investigative Reporting
• Empty Cradles, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• Stand Your Ground, Tampa Bay Times

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Small

Winner:

• FRONTLINE

Finalist:

• Homicide Watch D.C.
• St. Louis Beacon
• The Texas Tribune

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Medium

Winner:

• ProPublica

Finalist:

• California Watch
• Slate Magazine
• WNYC

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Large

Winner:

• NYTimes.com

Finalist:

• CNN Digital
• The Seattle Times
• WSJ.com

General Excellence, Non-English, Small/Medium

Winner:

• Rue89 (France)

Finalist:

• 20minutos.es (Spain)
• Il Tirreno (Italy)

Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism

Winner:

• Storify

Finalist:

• CartoDB
• NewsCred
• Open Source Election Tools, Los Angeles Times

Breaking News, Medium

Winner:

• Hurricane Irene Threatens New York City, WNYC

Finalist:

• Occupy Nashville, The Tennessean
• University of Alberta Shooting, Edmonton Journal

Breaking News, Large

Winner:

• Occupy L.A., Los Angeles Times

Finalist:

• The Death of Muammar Gaddafi, Al Jazeera English
• The Fall of Tripoli, The Associated Press
• Hurricane Irene, The New York Times

Planned News/Events, Small

Winner:

• Congressional Primaries 2012, Knight News Innovation Laboratory, Northwestern University

Finalist:

• Primary Night 2012, The Texas Tribune
• Supreme Court and Health Care Reform, WebMD

Planned News/Events, Medium

Winner:

• 12:51, Stuff.co.nz and The Press

Finalist:

• Oscars Coverage, Slate Magazine

Planned News/Events, Large

Winner:

• The Reckoning – America and the World a Decade After 9/11, The New York Times

Finalist:

• Judging The Health Care Law, NPR
• The L.A. Riots, 20 Years Later, Los Angeles Times
• Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 Attacks, Newsday.com

Explanatory Reporting, Small

Winner:

• EarthFix

Finalist:

• Andrew Leonard: The Student Loan Crisis, Salon
• Class: The Great Divide, St. Louis Beacon
• The Farmer of the Future, Harvest Public Media
• Putting Detroit’s Problems in Regional and Historical Context, Remapping Debate

Explanatory Reporting, Medium

Winner:

• College Completion: Who Graduates from College, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Finalist:

• The Opportunity Gap: Is Your State Providing Equal Access to Education?, ProPublica

Explanatory Reporting, Large

Winner:

• Connecting Music and Gesture, NYTimes.com
• Gay Rights, State by State (and Beyond), The Guardian

Finalist:

• A Record Chain of Kidney Transplants, NYTimes.com
• Somalia: Where Famine Is a Crime, The Toronto Star
• StateImpact, NPR and Public Media Stations in Eight States

Topical Reporting, Small

Winner:

• EarthFix

Finalist:

• Counterspill
• Nieman Journalism Lab

Topical Reporting, Medium

Winner:

• Continuing Coverage: NYPD Stop and Frisk, WNYC

Finalist:

• California Lost, California Watch
• Education Coverage and the Turnaround, Las Vegas Sun

Topical Reporting, Large

Winner:

• Middle East Voices, Voice of America

Finalist:

• CNN Belief Blog, CNN
• FiveThirtyEight — Nate Silver’s Political Calculus, The New York Times
• Philly School Files, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Online Commentary, Small

Winner:

• Bear 71, National Film Board of Canada

Finalist:

• Mary Elizabeth Williams, Lab Rat, Salon
• Minorities Within a Minority Culture, The Mary Sue

Online Commentary, Medium

Winner:

• Mad Men Coverage, Slate Magazine

Finalist:

• Kevin Drum Blog, Mother Jones
• Slate Political Gabfest, Slate Magazine

Online Commentary, Large

Winner:

• Grantland.com — Bill Simmons, ESPN

Finalist:

• Death and Dying — Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times
• Lyndsey Parker Yahoo! Music, Yahoo!
• The Seattle Times Editorial Section, The Seattle Times

Feature, Small

Winner:

• Coal: A Love Story, Powering a Nation

Finalist:

• Bear 71, National Film Board of Canada
• The Canoe Project, WLRN-Miami Herald News & Under the Sun on WLRN
• Twitter by Post, The Morning News

Feature, Medium

Winner:

• The Education of Dasmine Cathey, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Finalist:

• Aftermath Special Presentation, ABC Open

Feature, Large

Winner:

• Mauritania, CNN

Finalist:

• Following the Dreamers: What Happened to the Seat Pleasant 59?, The Washington Post
• Outside the Lines: A Man Obsessed, ESPN
• Punched Out — The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer, NYT.com
• Under Suspicion: Voices About Muslims in America, The Washington Post

Feature, Student

Winner:

• Slab City Stories, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

Finalist:

• Finding the Uwharries, Carolina Photojournalism Workshop, University of North Carolina
• Visualizing Florida, University of Miami Graduate Program in Multimedia Journalism

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism, Small

Winner:

• No Choice: Florida Charter Schools Failing to Serve Students with Disabilities, StateImpact Florida (WUSF and WLRN-Miami Herald News Public Radio)

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism, Medium

Winner:

• Broken Shield, California Watch

Finalist:

• Decoding Prime, California Watch
• Redistricting: How Powerful Interests Are Drawing You Out of a Vote, ProPublica
• Terrorists for the FBI, Mother Jones

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism, Large

Winner:

• Stand Your Ground, Tampa Bay Times

Finalist:

• The Fed’s Trillion-Dollar Secret, Bloomberg News
• Methadone and the Politics of Pain, The Seattle Times

Non-English Projects, Small/Medium

Winner:

• Mexodus, Borderzine.com (Mexico / U.S.)

Finalist:

• To Understand the Crisis, 20minutos.es (Spain)
• Whisper Jokes in the GDR – Protest Off the Record, Berliner Morgenpost (Germany)

Non-English Projects, Large

Winner:

• Portraits of Paraná, Gazeta do Povo (Brazil)

Finalist:

• The Cords That Bind Us, El Tiempo (Colombia)
• First Anniversary of Japan Earthquake, Universo Online (Brazil)

News and Online Commentary, Student

Winner:

• The Red Line Project — NATO Coverage, The Red Line Project, DePaul University

Finalist:

• USC Shootings, Neon Tommy

The judges did not name finalists in the Breaking News, Small and Explanatory Reporting, Student categories.

ONA did not receive enough entries to judge the General Excellence, Non-English, Large category. Those entrants have been notified and refunded. In addition, three student categories were combined to make up the News and Online Commentary, Student category. Those entrants have been notified.

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Judges:

• Rich Beckman, Knight Chair in Visual Journalism, University of Miami
• Heather Billings, News applications developer, Chicago Tribune
• Paul Bucci, Director, Digital Products, Pacific News Group
• Neil Budde, CEO, Philadelphia Public Interest Information Network
• Jeanne Carstensen, former Ex. Managing Editor, The Bay Citizen
• Ron Coddington, AME Visuals, Chronicle of Higher Education
• Anil Dash, Founder, ThinkUp and Activate
• Kat Downs, Interactive Projects Editor, Washington Post
• Kathleen Ehrlich, Director of Digital Content, New York Public Radio
• Alex Howard, Technology writer and editor, O’Reilly Radar
• Elise Hu, Digital Editorial Coordinator, NPR
• Rich Jaroslovsky, technology columnist, Bloomberg News; ONA founding president
• Mark Katches, Editorial Director, Center for Investigative Reporting
• Scott Klein, Editor of News Applications, ProPublica; co-founder of DocumentCloud
• Vadim Lavrusik, Journalist program manager, Facebook; Adjunct Professor in social media, Columbia University Journalism School
• Colin Mulvany, Photojournalist and multimedia producer, The Spokesman-Review
• Tasneem Raja, Digital interactive editor, Mother Jones
• Ju-Don Roberts, General Manager and Senior Vice President, Everyday Health
• Zach Seward, Senior editor, Quartz
• Will Sullivan, Mobile Product Manager, Broadcasting Board of Governors
• Ryan Thornburg, Assistant professor, University of North Carolina
• Matt Waite, Professor, University of Nebraska
• Ben Welsh, Database Producer, L.A. Times
• Dave Wright, Digital Design Director, NPR
• Chrys Wu, User Engagement Strategist, Matchstrike LLC

Non-English Awards:

• Rosental Alves, Director, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, University of Texas, Austin
• Paul Brannan, Independent Digital News Consultant, London
• Arianna Ciccone, International Journalism Festival, Perugia, Italy
• Wang Feng, Online Editor, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
• Katie King, Senior Product Manager, MSN UK, London; ONA board member
• Tetyana Lokot, Head of New Media Sequence, Mohyla School of Journalism, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine
• Dorothy Parvaz, Online Journalist, Al Jazeera English, Doha, Qatar
• Angela Pimenta, PATRI Políticas Públicas, São Paulo
• Eric Scherer, Director of Future Media, France Televisions, Paris
• Mario Tedeschini-Lalli, Deputy Director Innovation and Development, Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso, Rome; ONA board member
• Nick Wrenn, Vice President of Digital Services, CNN International, Atlanta
• Jose Zamora, Univision News, Miami

Judges were recused from discussing categories in which their own organizations were entered.