Solo and independent Web sites can help improve the quality of journalism online not just by criticizing it from afar, but by embracing the craft and participating in competitions like the Online Journalism Awards.

Last weekend I served on the judging panel for the OJAs here at the University of Southern California. (USC's Annenberg School of Journalism, which publishes this site, administers the OJAs with the Online News Association.) Throughout the weekend, when we weren't evaluating entries, talk among the judges often turned to the state of our industry. And, specifically, to the emergence of bloggers and other online-exclusive information sources.

Fellow judge Kevin Roderick called the judging experience "humbling" on his L.A. Observed blog, noting "it also reminds me how much impressive journalism gets done on the Web, and it improves every year." Amen to that. But I felt a twinge of frustration, as well, in not finding more examples of top-quality writing and reporting from solo and independent sites among the entrants.

When I got this year's list of entrants last month, I dived into it eagerly, looking for new voices and niche Web sites I'd not found my way to before. Yet I found too few among the dozens of outstanding entries from established leaders such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and the BBC.

Granted, most sites will never be able to match the reporting power of the Times, Post or BBC. "It would be a rare solo site that could compete in general excellence or technical innovation, but they certainly could hold their own in writing, commentary and, possibly, in service," Roderick wrote to me later, alluding to several categories in which the ONA presents awards. "I'd argue that if creative use of the medium was defined more broadly than technical innovation, and gave more credit to journalistic creativity in using the tools we have, sites with lesser resources might make good showings there."

With media consolidation and profit pressure squeezing newsrooms and news hole across the industry, the Internet is providing downsized and never-hired journalists the opportunity to stay in the field, publishing insightful, lively reporting directly to readers. At the same time, thousands of online blogs and discussion communities are developing into reliable sources for information on subjects long ignored by most daily newspapers and broadcast reports. Want examples? Start by looking to the handful of such sites that did enter and receive recognition from the OJA judges, including MousePlanet, which was tapped as a finalist for its coverage of several accidents on a Disneyland roller coaster.

But, Roderick said, "there is certainly a lot of journalistic excellence occurring beneath the awards' radar."

So why didn't more people who run those sites enter?

"It's a matter of outreach," Anthony Moor, editor of OrlandoSentinel.com and another OJA judge, suggested. "We need to seek them out and make our mission known."

In previous years, the ONA offered separate categories for independent sites and those affiliated with "offline" news organizations, such as newspapers and cable channels. The ONA did away with that distinction this year, in part due to a declining number of entries in the independent categories in previous years, John Granatino, ONA Awards chairman, said.

"There are no barriers to entry for any site that wishes to be considered for an Online Journalism Award," Granatino said. "We had a record number of entries this year, so on the face of it I believe the rule changes did not hurt -- they only helped."

While the conversations the judges had during the evaluation process remain off the record, I can say that many judges, myself included, looked aggressively for examples of online-original reporting among the entries.

"We need to continue to adjust our categories and rules with even more specificity so as to ensure the emphasis is on the journalism -- the story -- and I believe we would be better served if we drew the line at online-original work," Moor told me. If the OJAs don't, he added, "I think we risk becoming an awards program that inadvertently grades the presentation of shovelware and amount of Internet-friendly add-ons, instead of honoring high-quality, Internet-specific journalism."

Such attitudes open the door to bloggers, Web communities and small online-only newsrooms looking for an advocate to help them bring their best work to the public's attention. But as so many state lottery ads remind us, you have to play to win.

The ONA's institutional openness to small and independent sites helps, but its members must work individually to bring the operators of such sites into the fold if the OJAs are to become as synonymous with online excellence the way the Pulitzers have become for print.

To do that, members must overcome the skepticism that many solo and independent Web publishers feel toward awards, and toward journalism as an industry.

Even offline, some journalists simply aren't comfortable with competitions. Josh Marshall, publisher of the widely respected Talking Points Memo blog, responded that he "steers clear" of awards when I asked him why he had not submitted an entry to the OJAs. Furthermore, the ease with which individuals can publish online attracts iconoclasts and "lone eagles" who just don't want to play an active role in any larger industry or organization.

And people who devote much of their time to a medium in which journalists are ripped on a daily basis might not feel inclined to have their work judged by representatives of that same industry. From Free Republic on the right to Media Whores Online on the left, popular Web communities publicize real and perceived errors and oversights by "established" journalists. The Web provides a global voice to dissatisfied readers and sources, promoting a meme that journalism's failed the public.

That conclusion's just as simple and wrongheaded as the opinion held by so many offline reporters that bloggers and Web publishers are just a bunch of underemployed hacks who offer the world nothing more than unsubstantiated rants. Sure, some writers on both sides of this digital divide need to invest more time learning the basics of clean writing, accurate reporting and sound ethics. But many other writers, online and off, are helping inform and enlighten the public.

Those are the folks who need the OJAs.

Good journalists need to have their work heard, no matter what medium they work in. And awards competitions can help publicize great work, especially for relatively new sites that haven?t yet captured the attention of the general public.

More personal contact between established journalists and the independent and emerging journalists working online can help more Web publishers see journalism as a collection of real people, individual professionals, and not some faceless monolith. At the same time, personal contact can help more people in offline newsrooms see online publishers as real people too, individuals who often have insight, information and voices that deserve to be more widely heard.

And that will, in turn, improve, motivate and inspire news coverage on both sides.

So hit your bookmark list, find the people running the sites you frequent and make contact. Compliment them on running a site you like to read frequently and open a line of communication. Invite them to join organizations like the ONA. Encourage them to enter contests like the OJAs.

As Granatino wrote me, "my own personal belief is that both bloggers and traditional media sites are both evolving toward each other." I believe that, too.

Let's start getting to know each other along the way.