Washington, D.C. - Sunlight Live, the Sunlight Foundation‘s innovative blending of data, streaming video, liveblogging and social networking - first used at February’s bipartisan health-care summit - is this year’s $10,000 Grand Prize winner in the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism.
Sunlight Live attracted nearly 43,000 viewers, 9,800 livebloggers, and more than 1,300 tweets. The judges not only honored the project for its individual merits, but also because it highlights “the ethos that suffuses the Sunlight Foundation’s entire body of work,” said NPR’s Matt Thompson, one of this year’s judges.
“They showed how to add journalistic punch to a carefully orchestrated government event, adding context and insight to the proceedings. And they don’t stop at merely shedding light on the behind-the-scenes proceedings of government - they go a step beyond to make it fun and engaging, creating a social experience around the event.”
Six other projects that coalesced collaborations to foster unique levels of digital engagement were honored with $1,000 Special Distinction Awards. “We’re beyond the ‘wow’ phase of realizing that citizens can impact journalism and we’re now into the ‘how’ phase,” said Jan Schaffer, director of J-Lab, which administers the awards. “Welcome to the next chapter for online journalism.”
thank you knight foundation! now what can we do about test driving this talking Trans Am i hear so much about?
