Funferal

Innovation in journalism rewarded

J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism has announced the 5 shortlisted finalists for the new Batten Awards for innovations in journalism.
From the J-Labs press release:

“These newsrooms have really risen to the challenge of doing good, fundamental storytelling in fresh, exciting ways,” said Bryan Monroe, chairman of the Batten Awards Advisory Board and Knight Ridder assistant vice president/ news. “They should serve as models for other newsrooms, big and small, showing that all it takes to create innovative journalism is a great idea, a bit of time, and, most of all, the will and the leadership to make great things happen.”

Visit J-Lab’s website to view these finalists and other notable entries:

• Minnesota Public Radio’s ‘Budget Balancer,’¬ù a 19-page Web game that challenged users to fix the state’s $4.2 billion deficit by cutting programs and raising taxes without spending too much political capital; 7,000 visitors submitted 11,000 budgets.
• The Chicago Tribune’s ‘When Evil Struck America,’ a CD-ROM time capsule distributed to more than 1 million subscribers on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks. Interactive and easy to navigate, it boosted single-day street sales of the newspaper by 100,000.
• The San Francisco Chronicle’s ‘Two Cents’¬ù project, a ‘virtual man-on-the-street’ effort involving a database of more than 1,450 ‘field correspondents,’ residents who contribute and react to articles, opinion pieces and a standing op-ed column.
• MSNBC.com’s ‘The Big Picture,’¬ù a sophisticated series of in-depth guided tours on three subjects – Iraq, the 2002 elections, and the Oscars – that integrated video, audio, text, interactive polls and games into playful, yet informative, multimedia packages intended to give the big-picture overview on the topics.
• VillageSoup.com for its community media Web sites that are delivering homespun news and information to three Maine towns, along with interactive virtual tours and e-mails of scenic postcards.