Today’s announcement from Pulitzer Prize Board that it will accept online material from newspaper entrants in all journalism categories raises a question: When will the profession get an awards competition that honors the best in journalism, regardless of medium?
Awards programs play an important role in promoting great work. But with the explosion in the number of information sources now available online, the newspaper industry would better serve its long-term interests by switching its focus from promoting print journalism to promoting great journalism overall. Today’s decision takes a needed baby step in that direction. But the Pulitzers remain off-limits to online-only news organizations.
The market battle isn’t between print and online. It’s between journalism, across all media, and agenda-driven content, from astroturf propaganda to paid advertising masquerading as news. The profession as a whole would benefit from using its most prominent awards competition to support worthy efforts by those reporting news online.
The Pulitzer decision raises an additional challenge for the Online Journalism Awards, which are administered for the Online News Association by USC. The ONA originally split its awards between independent online news organizations and those affiliated with newspapers or broadcast outfits. In 2004, the ONA did away with that designation, in favor of splitting the awards by an entrant’s number of unique visitors. (I supported the switch at the time, but have since written the ONA in support of eliminating category classifications altogether.)
Since that switch, the number of entries from independent news organizations have plummeted, and the awards have become dominated by affiliated sites. If the Pulitzers are now going to consider online work as part of its awards, will the OJAs become redundant?
[Editor’s note: I won’t be posting tomorrow, as I’ll be going in for a little medical attention. And, depending upon the quality and effectiveness of the post-op medication I get, I might not be able to work a keyboard by Friday either. We’ll see.]
About Robert Niles
Whoa. Let’s work backwards here. If we were to look up “redundant” in a modern-day Devil’s dictionary, I wouldn’t be surprised if “awards ceremonies” were under it. We’ve got the Oscars, the Golden Globes, People’s Choice, best movie song and best song from a movie, etc.
I don’t think you have much to worry about the OJA franchise. The Pulitzers have chosen to stick with newspapers and newspaper-affiliated sites. (Magazines have to yearn for ASME’s plainly-titled National Magazine Awards.) So the OJA’s road is wide open.
The SPJ has a clever way of splitting up their awards: deadline and non-deadline. It doesn’t discriminate based on delivery, but it does based on what you deliver on time. I think that’s a fair distinction.