TechPresident.com, a data-rich, nonpartisan group blog that covers real-time, online activity of the 2008 presidential candidates – and chronicles online content from voters who will elect them, is this year’s $10,000 Grand Prize winner in the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism, given by the Merrill College’s J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism.
The site invites every-day people to help break campaign news and it tracks voter-generated videos on YouTube, candidate “friends” on MySpace and Facebook, blog mentions on Technorati, voter demands for appearances on Eventful, and voter-generated photos on Flickr.
“The site not only reports on, but encourages, citizens to participate more directly in the political process,” the panel of judges said. “It’s an amazing source of information from a non-traditional news outlet.” The site is published by the Personal Democracy Forum.
Winning a $2,000 First Prize is another non-traditional news organization, the Council on Foreign Relations. CFR.org’s rich media “Crisis Guides” present compelling, in-depth news about the world’s most pressing crisis zones. “This is an institution stepping up and honoring the best of journalism. It’s filling an absolutely articulated need,” the judges said.
Four other innovative efforts each won $1,000 awards. And, for the first time, the judges cited four more creative ideas with Honorable Mentions.
“This year’s winners gave the judges another way to think about innovations in journalism,” said Jan Schaffer, director of J-Lab, which administers the awards.
