The honorees, who include Ashton Pittman for unpacking the Brett Favre welfare scandal in Mississippi, reflect non-traditional reporting excellence
CalMatters, the Baltimore Banner, and the recently shuttered BuzzFeed News are among the winners of the 2023 American Journalism Online Awards, given by New York University’s American Journalism Online Master’s Program.
The American Journalism Online (AJO) Awards were established in 2021.
“With these awards, we honor deep, impactful reporting and vivid storytelling from media outlets that live outside the mainstream,” says Adam Penenberg, founder and director of the AJO program, part of NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
Other winning online reporting includes Ashton Pittman’s unpacking—in a complex Twitter thread—of misuse of state funds by former NFL quarterback Brett Favre and public officials for the Mississippi Free Press, NPR and the Marshall Project’s look at the impact of structural changes to local law enforcement on a suburban New York community, and Katherine Long and Shayanne Gal’s Insider examination of how the warehouse boom has affected American life.
A complete list of this year’s winners and categories, which include “Best News-Based Podcast”, “Best Data Visualization”, and “Best Debunking of Fake News”, may be found on the AJO program’s website.
The awards are determined by judges drawn from the profession who each select a winner for a specific category. These include Cerise Castle, a multimedia journalist who has hosted and produced programs for VICE News Tonight, NPR, and “Marketplace” (“Best Use of Public Records”), Ann Choi, an investigative reporter at Bloomberg News (“Best Data Visualization”), Michael de Yoanna, editor-in-chief of Colorado Community Media (“Non-Profit News Source”), Will Schick, editor-in-chief of Street Sense Media (“Best Non-Traditional News Outlet”), Kat Tenbarge, a tech and culture reporter at NBC News Digital (“Best News-Based Twitter Thread”), and Chenjerai Kumanyika, an assistant professor at the Carter Journalism Institute and part of the Podcasting and Audio Reportage faculty (“Best News-Based Podcast”).
The nomination and judging processes are described on the AJO program’s website.
Editor’s Note:
NYU’s American Journalism Online Masters is a degree program in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute that allows students to study with some of today’s working journalists from nearly anywhere in the world. The program offers coursework in investigative reporting, podcasting, feature writing, law and ethics, and photojournalism, among other facets of the profession. Its instructors include Emmy and Pulitzer Prize winners, as well as finalists for the Peabody and National Magazine Awards. For information, please visit the program’s website.