NEAPNEA winners: Making the best of what's around

I was asked to judge part of the 2002 Web site contest for the New England Associated Press News Executives Association. While there is a lot of talk about finding the next "killer app" to lure readers and develop traffic, the winning entries in the categories Best News Site, Best Community Service, and Best Special Section for newspapers with circulation of 40,000 or more all demonstrate that there is much to be done with the technology currently available.

Best News Site

www.boston.com

One of the biggest challenges in presenting news on the Web is to prevent the site from looking like the collection box for a wire feed. This is one way boston.com, the online arm of The Boston Globe, sets itself apart. With topic headers above headline links, dominant art, and succinct summaries for every story featured on the front, boston.com is both compelling and efficient. The site also has an impressive ability to post breaking news in a timely manner.

It does a good job of breaking out different sections, as evidenced by its coverage of the ongoing child sexual abuse scandal in the Boston Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church as well as multimedia efforts covering the Big Dig, Boston's Central Artery highway and tunnel project.

From a user perspective, boston.com makes it easy to find what you're looking for. Categories (in red type) above headers compartmentalize news and information. The site does an admirable job of putting a lot of information on the first screen without overwhelming the user. It also uses a "breaking news" box, which quickly draws the eye.

It's obvious the site places an emphasis on breaking news, even to the point where two unrelated stories share common home page real estate. But in an age when every second seems to count a little more than it did the day before, and when CNN is scrolling unrelated headlines below a story on the rest of the screen, this is not something to be criticized too harshly.

Best Community Service

http://projo.com/extra/lead

Projo.com, the online arm of The Providence Journal, truly provides a service to the community with the light it sheds on the problems associated with lead-based paint in its six-part series, "Poisoned."

One of the most haunting aspects of "Poisoned" is the online database of known violators, which helps demonstrate how widespread the issue is. On nearly every page of the section, it is possible to search for lead-hazard cases in specific Rhode Island towns.

In addition, the site makes effective use of photo galleries, with clean, flash-enabled interfaces that are easy to click through. The online section, with a credited staff of just three people, also includes contact information for various agencies and support services for dealing with lead paint.

The impact of the coverage is evident in the index of stories about how the community, legislature and courts have reacted to the series. Here's a sample: "State's lead-paint suit to proceed, court rules"; "Adversaries unite to advance a lead bill"; "Lead-paint poisoning hits home in Senate"; "State to intervene in more cases of lead poisoning"; "Senate panel approves law seeking to curb poisoning."

Best Special Section

http://boston.com/beyond_bigdig/

It hasn't been around as long as Boston's frustration over the failure of the Red Sox to win a World Series, but the aggravation of the Big Dig has become something of a way of life in Boston.

Now the most expensive single-city public works project in U.S. history is nearing completion, as the Central Artery in Boston prepares to move underground, and Bostonians wonder: What should we do with the new land above the tunnel?

With its section, "Beyond the Big Dig," boston.com impressively partners with MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning and WCVB-TV Channel 5 to provide a comprehensive and coherent exploration of that question. This package harnesses the power of the Web to tell the story through still imagery, video, text and message boards.

Various sections of the newspaper -- Living/Arts, Op-Ed and news - have contributed to "Beyond the Big Dig," which has been organized so that it can take on a life of its own. This section works so well partly because it takes the best of what the various partners have to offer - research from the experts at MIT and video from WCVB-TV's "Chronicle" program -- and incorporates them into one cohesive body of work.