J. D. Lasica and Jay Rosen are just two writers reporting back from the BlogHer conference that recently wrapped up in Santa Clarita, CA.

Search for other blogs about the conference with a BlogHer tag at Technorati, although Amy Gahran, who was also at BlogHer, wrote that a Technorati representative at the conference had to face “some tough questions about that service’s true reliability and relevance,” particularly in regards to Technorati’s tag feature and its Top 100 Blogs.

Editor & Publisher reports that the Associated Press Managing Editors awarded both The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Providence (R.I.) Journal its Online Convergence Award in the division for large newspapers. The award honors large, midsize and small newspapers for stories that demonstrated excellence in two platforms: print and online journalism.

The AJC award was for coverage of the March 11 courthouse shootings. Judges were impressed with the Web site’s multimedia coverage and “‘the immediacy of online reporting without letting up on the journalism.'”

The Projo award was for a seven-part series about a man’s efforts to prevent overdevelopment on an island. The Web series, “Saving Block Island: How Rob Lewis led the way,” featured multimedia narratives.

Judges were impressed with the “‘complete, while completely different, experience'” offered by the print and online versions of the story. “‘The print version was as impressive in its layout as in its reporting, and the online site design and Web-oriented elements were a perfect match with the topic,'” judges said.

There were 43 entries, the highest number in the history of the four-year competition. The awards will be presented at the APME conference in late October.

A story that was completely developed on the FRONTLINE/World Web site made it to broadcast news, according to editor Stephen Talbot.

“Last night we made a little history,” Talbot wrote, since this is not traditionally how stories make it to TV news.

Reporter Mark Schapiro collaborated with the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and Mother Jones magazine to produce the four-part FRONTLINE/World Web series called “Nuclear Underground,” which eventually became a NewsHour story.

U.S. officials are calling it “one of the biggest cases of nuclear smuggling they’ve ever uncovered,” Talbot wrote.

“We have always tried to provide visitors with a dynamic online experience, offering high-quality streaming video of all our broadcast stories. What’s exciting now is that with this nuclear blackmarket story — and with our new Rough Cut series of weekly Web videos — we are originating stories online. Our Web site is rapidly becoming the place where we develop and shape our broadcast stories. … we like this track we’re on … We will continue to breakdown the barriers between broadcast and online media.”