First place: Carrie Seidman, The Herald-Tribune

About this entry: Carrie Seidman’s talent shines in her vivid, enchanting features. She writes with grace in a series following a ballet dancer’s journey to compete in Havana.

Read Home to Havana online here

Follow Carrie on Twitter @CarrieSeidman

Lithe, long of limb and beautiful. That describes more than this dancer. The package is done with an economy of movement that embraces the story and art. I especially liked the stories and videos of life in Cuba, providing an intimate look at the islanders, Americans visiting and then, most excellently, links to some translated stories. “They honestly love to dance here.”

Second place: Staff, StarNews Media

About this entry: “We produced a print special section for the 150th anniversary of the fall of Wilmington in the Civil War, but knew some of what we wanted to share with our readers would be conveyed better online. We tailored separate versions of print content to the options available online, such as an in-depth look at the uniforms re-enactors assemble, video of a re-enacted battle, a quiz on local Civil War history, a timeline of war events important to the area, then-and-now comparison photos of landmarks and an interactive map of key sites related to the war.”

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View the online components of Civil War at 150: Civil War, Yankee or Rebel? A Civil War test, Who wore it best – Confederate, Union uniforms for re-enactors

Follow StarNews on Twitter @StarNewsOnline

The landing page is much better than this site’s other projects. Liked the Yankee vs. Rebel quiz, but the way incorrect answers vs. correct is not well defined. Other quiz was dandy for locals. But after the initial roadblocks, this is a very well-thought-out and engaging project pages. I was pretty impressed. Good variety of historical information and interactivity. A tip for this paper is to make sure to give judges a login, because when we find a site to explore, you want to encourage that.

Third place: Rich Saal, Bart Bolton, Justin Fowler, The State Journal-Register

About this entry: “The State Journal-Register’s photography staff has long been recognized as one of the best in the nation, not just in Illinois. With finite opportunities in print to display photographs, online presented a logical way to present more images.

Thus was born the Visual Journal, an immersive experience into our stunning staff photography and into our vast resources of historic photos, which are incredibly popular with readers. The team’s goal was to present photos in a clean and unobstructed format, with a magazine style approach.”

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Browse The State Journal-Register’s Visual Journal here

Follow Rich on Twitter @RichSaal

I love this idea and the fact that time is taken to put captions with each photo and not to just copy-paste. The photo display is huge, as it should be, and the photos are as advertised. In today’s digital environment, it’s rare that photos get the appropriate play, which is odd, given how much our visitors and readers love to see them.