‘Ace’ Ventura Wins Online Prize

The digital version of the Ventura County Star has scooped one of the most coveted prizes at this year’s Online Journalism Awards.

Workers at the southern Californian daily title were delighted to see their website take the gong for General Excellence in the small sites category.

The judges decided that the site “exemplifies how a decision to fully immerse a news organisation in online journalism can transform a small local newspaper into a multiple media information source for the community”.

Host Ruth Gersh also noted that the judging panel “decided to honour a site that made a huge leap in the last year and who made a commitment to put the readers at the centre of the news, not just at the receiving end”.

Meanwhile, the awards for General Excellence in the medium and large sites groups were handed to the Denver Post and USA Today respectively.

In addition, the Washington Post received a special prize in recognition of its innovative multimedia project entitled OnBeing.

OnBeing is building an archive of films of ordinary people talking about themselves and their lives and represents a concerted attempt to create a community via the web.

The Online Journalism Awards are administered by the Online News Association and the University of Southern California.

For a full list of this year’s winners, visit journalists.org.