MyBallard.com, Gotham Gazette and Publish2 Win OJAs

MyBallard.com, one of five adjacent neighborhood sites in Seattle that make up Next Door Media, has won the Online Journalism Award for community collaboration. The OJAs are designed to promote the next generation of journalism. They have been run since 1990 by the Online News Association in collaboration with the University of Miami’s School of Communications.

Run by Lost Remote’s Cory and Kate Bergman — both longtime TV journalists — My Ballard was selected over the L.A. Times and Miami Herald. “My Ballard is exactly what newspapers are trying to do with hyperlocal content. And these guys do it,” the judges said. “There was no site that fulfills the sense of community collaboration better. It’s the literal definition of the category.”

Cory Bergman is also director of new product development for MSNBC.com, which just acquired EveryBlock. He is a featured speaker at BIA/Kelsey’s ILM:09 conference in December.

Another hyperlocal winner at the OJAs  was the Gotham Gazette, which won for General Excellence in Online Journalism, Micro Site. The judges noted: “The site is exemplary in its thoroughness, comprehensiveness and the depth with which it explored the issues that are important to New Yorkers and New York. The quality of the games is impressive, as is the depth of interactive features it offers. Overall, it was a top-notch example of the trend toward hyperlocal coverage.”

A third prize was given to Publish2, which won The Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism. Publish2 bills itself as “The Web’s largest newsroom” as “Journalists collaborate to curate the news.”