So the BBC mentioned casually this morning that they had won an Online Journalism Award, which sounded promising until they added that one of the other winners was the New York Times. And indeed this is true:
General Excellence in Online Journalism, Large Site nytimes.com, The New York Times The New York Times stands above others. What I like about the way they use technology is that they are really thinking about their readers. The content is superb. The elegance of their photo editing stands out. In the digital area they are more innovative than others. IN terms of execution, in terms of content, in terns of just about everything you can think about, these guys hit it. When I consider general excellence I consider every department on that site. There's no question about it to me, the New York Times comes out on top.
Which kinda clashed with some other people's views of the NY Times online. Firstly there's the list of recent journalism failures (Van Jones, Acorn etc.) which led some poor woman to say:
someone asked if she had heard the latest about Acorn, "I had to answer 'no' because I get all my news from The New York Times."
And then there's the real no-no of stealthy rewrites, such as this recent one regarding the Chicago Olympics fail:
The reference to other politicians on the journey in the original ("On Air Force One with him Friday, Mr. Obama brought a couple cabinet officers from Illinois, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, as well as Senator Dick Durban") went away.
An entire paragraph that referred to an Olympic allusion in an Obama campaign speech last year ("And the prospect of winning was too irresistible. After all, Mr. Obama has already envisioned the day when he could welcome the world to his hometown, never mind that small matter of reelection. 'In 2016, I’ll be wrapping up my second term as president, he told a rally in Chicago in June 2008. 'So I can’t think of a better way than to be marching into Washington Park ... as president of the United States and announcing to the world: Let the Games begin!'") was flushed.
An arrogant, victory-lap jab at critics from Rahm Emanuel (“'They shouldn’t try to make politics of this,' Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff and a Chicagoan himself, told ABC News. 'I think they should take some pride in the U.S.’s win, and you know, we’ll make sure they get some good seats once Chicago does host the games.'") was deep-sixed.
But the Times did find room to note the existence of the president deigning to do his real job for a bit by meeting with the general in charge in Afghanistan ("Mr. Obama also used the opportunity to meet for 25 minutes with his Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who flew to Copenhagen from London, where he was on business. 'The biggest loss of anything on this trip was sleep,' Mr. Gibbs said.")
I think the OJA has just proven itself to be a complete waste of time. Unless of course they were confused and meant to ward the York New Times of York, England but got confused?