ONA Awards recognise innovation in investigative and data journalism

Innovative investigative and data journalism websites were among the winners of the 2010 US Online News Association's (ONA) annual awards, announced this weekend.

French site OWNI, which describes itself as a "media innovation incubator", was awarded the General Excellence in Online Journalism prize for a non-English small site. OWNI.fr specialises in data journalism and data visualisation and recently created an app and website for the release of WikiLeaks' Iraq war logs.

As a non-profit organisation, its journalists and staff work on innovative products and solutions for use by the wider media industry, OWNI data journalist Nicolas Kayser-Bril told Journalism.co.uk last week. It is the first time a French media organisation has won an ONA award.

"This award is an unprecedented tribute to our ongoing, collaborative project to nurture innovation, both in terms of digital journalism and our business model," said Nicolas Voisin, publisher and founder of OWNI.

"OWNI is a state-of-the-art model for augmented journalism without advertising or paywalls."

Non-profit outlets the Texas Tribune and California Watch, a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, were both recognised with General Excellence in Online Journalism awards.

CNN and NPR (National Public Radio) took two awards each and the New York Times won three, while MSNBC.com took the grand prize for General Excellence in Online Journalism for a large site.

CNN was named best breaking news site for large sites for its Haiti coverage and received the large site category prize for Online Topical Reporting/Blogging for its technology reporting. NPR's API release was recognised by the Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism and its mobile applications won this year's new emerging platforms prize.

A full list of the award winners is available on the ONA website.

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