Here’s the fresh, hot list of ONA Award finalists for 2010. Except for West Seattle Blog appearing as a community collaboration finalist, and Gotham Gazette making the list (Yeah!) the list is focused on news organizations that have a budget of over $1MM per year.
In the small sites category, the finalists are Pro Publica (has over $3MM in funding), The Texas Tribune (over $3MM in funding, and Voices of San Diego ( a superb success story!).
 In the Microsites category, California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting, Gotham Gazette  and the St. Louis Beacon–  are all great choices, with at least two with budgets of over $1 MM per year.

 I think all these sites are quality and amazing, but it seems silly that a West Seattle Blog, or a Baristanet, for example, would be competing in the same category as, uh, CaliforniaWatch.org.. This isn’t a slur on CAWatch, which deserves all of its hard-won acclaim, but a comment that it would be nice to have a category that was for truly small sites…small in budget as well as uniques.

Of course, on the other hand, this is just about what the judges consider to be quality, not about what the value or cost per user is. Sites that have raised millions to do in-depth reporting with a full-time staff of traditional journalists who left papers for these well-funded ventures are, by definition, turning out a very difference product than someone who creates a local community media site for an under-served community.

Maybe next year, there can be a category for community media where the metric is not only an audience of under 100,000 users, but a budget of under $200,000, just to pick a random number.  I’d like to see ONA find a way to seperate out the well-funded whales from the rest of the pack when we talk micro-site, because while they may be small in unique visitors, they are huge in resources.

Knight Award for Public Service
The Las Vegas Sun and the Greenspun Media Group: Do No Harm

Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Flipping Fraud

The Roanoke Times | roanoke.com: I-81: Fear, Facts and the Future

Gannett Foundation Award for Technical Innovation in the Service of Digital Journalism
AP Stylebook Application, site, Twitter feed

CNN iPhone App with iReport integrated

NPR API

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Micro Site
California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting

Gotham Gazette

St. Louis Beacon

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Small Site
ProPublica

The Texas Tribune | texastribune.org

voiceofsandiego.org

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Medium Site
The Las Vegas Sun and the Greenspun Media Group

Army Times Publishing Company: Military Times

Mother Jones

Salon Media Group: Salon.com

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Large Site
msnbc.com

NPR: NPR.ORG

New York Media: Nymag.com

The New York Times

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Non-English, Small Site
Cyberpresse.ca

OWNI

Local Foods Yahoo!Taiwan

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Non-English, Large Site
EL PAÍS

SA LA NACION

G1 – TV Globo

Breaking News, Small Site
The Oklahoman / NewsOK.com Staff: May 10 Tornados

The Tennessean: Nashville Flood

Breaking News, Large Site
Boston.com: The death of Edward M. Kennedy

CBC News: G20 Summit

CNN.com: Haiti Earthquake

The Seattle Times: Four Police Officers Slain

The New York Times: Haiti Earthquake Coverage

Specialty Site Journalism, Affiliated
BBC News: Election 2010

CHOW.com

NPR: NPR Music

Specialty Site Journalism, Independent
Curbed Network: Curbed.com

Design Observer Group: Design Observer

theheart.org by WebMD

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism, Small Site
The Center for Public Integrity: Sexual Assault on Campus: A Frustrating Search for Justice

ProPublica, the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Frontline: Law and Disorder

Vancouver Sun: Vanishing Point: A five-part investigative series

voiceofsandiego.org: Out of Reach

Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism, Large Site
The Las Vegas Sun and the Greenspun Media Group: Do No Harm

The Los Angeles Times: Toyota: Road to Recall

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Justice Delayed, Dismissed, Denied

NPR, ProPublica, Frontline: Brain Wars: How the Military is Failing the Wounded

The New York Times: Toxic Waters

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Small Site
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Innovation: Black Saturday

National Film Board of Canada: This Land

News21: Powering a Nation

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Medium Site
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, Domani Studios, The Martin Agency, AOL, AOL News, AOL SHOUTcast: We Choose the Moon

The Denver Post: American Soldier

The Las Vegas Sun and Greenspun Media Group: Bottoming Out

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Large Site
NPR: Grand Trunk Road

Reuters, Online News and the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Surviving the Tsunami – Stories of Hope

The New York Times: Held by the Taliban

USA TODAY: Vancouver Olympics

Multimedia Feature Presentation, Student
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University: SyracuseDiners.com

UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism: A Seed is Forever

UNC School of Journalism: Living Galapagos

Western Kentucky University Fleischaker-Greene Scholars: Farm to Fork: Investigating Agriculture

Online Topical Reporting/Blogging, Small Site
The Center for Public Integrity: Disaster in the Gulf

FLORIDA TODAY: The Flame Trench space blog

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Persian Letters

voiceofsandiego.org: Building a Community around Education Coverage

Online Topical Reporting/Blogging, Medium Site
CBC News: Inside Politics Blog

Mother Jones: Team Coverage of BP Oil Spill

Online Topical Reporting/Blogging, Large Site
AOL News: Haiti, Life After Death

CNN.com: Technology

CNN.com: Afghanistan Crossroads

Online Commentary/Blogging, Small Site
Caring.com: Dad Has Dementia

Forward.com: The Sisterhood

Truthdig: Chris Hedges

Online Commentary/Blogging, Medium Site
Salon.com: Glenn Greenwald

Mother Jones: Kevin Drum

Online Commentary/Blogging, Large Site
ESPN.com: Howard Bryant

Politics Daily: Jill Lawrence

The Los Angeles Times: Christopher Knight, Culture Monster

Outstanding Use of Digital Technologies, Professional
CNN.com: Home and Away: U.S. & Coalition Causalities

The Las Vegas Sun and Greenspun Media Group: Bottoming Out

The New York Times: Oil Spill Tracker

The Texas Tribune Data Apps

Outstanding Use of Digital Technologies, Student
No award given

Outstanding Use of Emerging Platforms
NPR.ORG Mobile Applications

USA TODAY for iPad

Online Video Journalism, Small Site
Huffington Post Investigative Fund: Tapped Out: How an Unpaid Water Bill Cost a Baltimore Woman Her Home

MediaStorm: Take Care

Minnesota Public Radio News: Explaining Instant Run-off Voting

Yale Environment 360: Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining

Online Video Journalism, Medium Site
The Las Vegas Sun and the Greenspun Media Group: Bottoming Out

Knoxville News Sentinel / knoxnews.com: Death on Chipman Street

The Dallas Morning News: Choosing Thomas

Online Video Journalism, Large Site
NPR: Krulwich on Science

NPR and ProPublica: Traumatic Brain Injury – The Battle For Care

TIME.com: Sudan Stories

The Toronto Star: William and the Windmill

The Washington Post: Scene In Video Series

Online Video Journalism, Student
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University: The Fall Workshop

Knight Center for International Media, School of Communication, University of Miami: My Story, My Goal

Community Collaboration
CBC News: G20: Street Level

CNN.com: Haiti: The Missing, The Found, The Victims

The Los Angeles Times: Westside Debate

West Seattle Blog: West Seattle’s only 24/7 news source