The students have left for the holidays here at USC (though many of them will be invading my hometown of Pasadena for the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl in a couple weeks). So that means we’re wrapping things up for another semester break.

I leave you with what I hope will be a touch of holiday inspiration: ‘Why do I love online publishing?’, with responses from some of the year’s top Web publishers and editor. Plus me. 😉

So allow me to wish you happy holidays until OJR returns after the New Year.

(Or, to satisfy the fans of Bill O’Reilly among us who hate the phrase ‘happy holidays,’ here’s a more detailed greeting from another, much more insightful, Fox personality:

“So, have a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, a crazy Kwanzaa, a tip-top Tet and a solemn, dignified Ramadan. And now a word from MY God, our sponsors!”

Thank you for that, Krusty the Clown.)

The New York-based National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which presents the Daytime Emmy Awards, will accept entries in a new category for video content delivered via the Internet or cell phones.

Entertainment video distributed first online between January 1, 2005 and March 1, 2006 is eligible for the new Emmy Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Content for Non-Traditional Delivery Platforms.” Entry applications are due March 1, and will be available for download from www.emmyonline.tv. The winner will be announced at the annual Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony, to be broadcast on ABC in April.

Unlike last month’s decision from the Pulitzer board to open that awards competition to online-original material produced by newspapers, the television academy is not limiting its award just to broadcasters. From the Academy’s press release:

Entries for this award must be original material made-for-broadband or made-for-mobile. These platforms include video blogs, website programs including journalistic reporting, event coverage or event analysis, mobisodes (short episodics created for mobile devices), video-on-demand and other video delivered over an IP network or platform such as wireless, broadband or VOD. Entries can not be material originally produced for television viewing and then repurposed for the new media. Entries will only be accepted on DVD and must not exceed 20 minutes in length.

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.]