ONA announces 165 finalists in the 2022 Online Journalism Awards

The Online News Association (ONA) is pleased to share the finalists for the 2022 Online Journalism Awards (OJAs) — the premier global awards that have honored excellence and innovation in digital journalism since 2000.

Winners for the 2022 OJAs will be announced during the 2022 Online News Association Conference (#ONA22), happening Sept. 21–24 in Los Angeles. Video streams will be available to both ONA22 attendees and non-attendees. The weeklong celebration will culminate in a special presentation on Saturday, Sept. 24. The evening will kick off with the OJAs drinks and networking reception, generously sponsored by Letterhead, followed by the Online Journalism Awards Banquet and Ceremony, made possible by Andscape.

Dana Goldberg, Co-Host of The Daily Beans Podcast and a regular guest on The Stephanie Miller show on SiriusXM Progressive 127, will host the ceremony.

In 2022, the OJAs will award 55 prizes across 23 categories, including four categories that were new or updated.

More than 140 digital media professionals from around the world volunteered as screeners to review the pool of 1,093 entries and determine semi-finalists. Over 60 judges, senior-level journalism professionals selected by ONA’s Awards and Recognition Committee, teamed up to select the 165 finalists. Judges considered the quality of the journalism, digital innovation and overall impact of the projects on the intended audiences and society at large.

Six of the awards come with a total of $57,000 in prize money, courtesy of SmartNews, The University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, 3M, the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication’s Agora Journalism Center, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and McKinsey Publishing. These awards honor general excellence in online journalism, investigative data journalism, science reporting, community-centered journalism, public service, and climate change.

The 2022 Online Journalism Awards finalists include:

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Large Newsroom

• The Boston Globe
• The Globe and Mail
• The Washington Post

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Medium Newsroom

• LAist
• San Francisco Chronicle
• The Marshall Project
• The Texas Tribune

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Small Newsroom

• The Markup
• The San Francisco Standard
• The Trace

General Excellence in Online Journalism, Micro Newsroom

• Knowable Magazine
• Mission Local
• The Brazilian Report
• The TRiiBE

3M Truth in Science Award, Large Newsroom

• As the pandemic exploded, a researcher saw the danger. China’s leaders kept silent, The Washington Post
• Black Snow: Big Sugar’s Burning Problem, Palm Beach Post, ProPublica
• Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame, NPR
• The Story of a Covid Wonder Drug, Gimlet

3M Truth in Science Award, Small/Medium Newsroom

• Gaslit, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the Cronkite School of Journalism ASU
• How American conservatives turned against the vaccine, Vox Media
• The Greenland Connection, The Post and Courier

Breaking News, Large Newsroom

• Lytton, B.C., destroyed by wildfire, The Globe and Mail
• Russia’s War On Ukraine, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Breaking News, Small/Medium Newsroom

• Breaking News: Uvalde School Shooting, The Texas Tribune
• Texas six-week abortion ban, The 19th
• Texas Tornado Outbreak, KXAN

Digital Video Storytelling, Long Form, Large Newsroom

• De-Escalate: The story of an intense protest on an Atlanta interstate, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Unlivable Oasis: A Family’s Housing Struggle on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis, ProPublica

Digital Video Storytelling, Long Form, Small/Medium Newsroom

• “Get Away from the Target”—Rescuing Migrants from the Libyan Coast Guard, The Outlaw Ocean Project
• Greywater, The New Yorker
• Pulled Over / Pulled Under, Reckon, AL.com

Digital Video Storytelling, Medium Form, Large Newsroom

• The Healing Kitchen, South China Morning Post
• Why Some White Evangelicals Are Rethinking Their Politics, ABC News, FiveThirtyEight

Digital Video Storytelling, Medium Form, Small/Medium Newsroom

• A Feast for Lost Souls, The Atavist Magazine
• Hitting a High Note: Core Values and Love of Music Inspire this Talented SF Family Band, The San Francisco Standard

Digital Video Storytelling, Series, Large Newsroom

• In Real Life, Newsy, Scripps
• Transnational, VICE World News

Digital Video Storytelling, Series, Small/Medium Newsroom

• Extremism in America, Retro Report, The WNET Group
• Proof of Concept, Grist

Digital Video Storytelling, Short Form, Small/Medium Newsroom

• How the .001% Use Retirement Accounts as Tax-Free Piggy Banks, ProPublica

Excellence and Innovation in Visual Digital Storytelling, Large Newsroom

• Gender and language, Reuters
• Inaccessible Cities, AJ Contrast, Al Jazeera Digital
• Inside the Apocalyptic Worldview of ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight,’ The New York Times
• Ukraine Crisis, Reuters

Excellence and Innovation in Visual Digital Storytelling, Medium Newsroom

• Mapping where the earth will become uninhabitable, FUNKE Zentralredaktion – Interaktiv
• Un(re)solved, FRONTLINE

Excellence and Innovation in Visual Digital Storytelling, Small Newsroom

• For you, Portugal, I swear!, Divergente

Excellence in Audio Digital Storytelling, Limited Series

• Into the Depths, National Geographic
• Say That Again?, The Christian Science Monitor
• The Forgotten Revolutionary, Southern California Public Radio
• Un(re)solved, FRONTLINE

Excellence in Audio Digital Storytelling, Ongoing Series

• Roe v. Wade, The Washington Post
• The Daily: The Fall of Afghanistan, The New York Times
• The Facebook Files Podcasts, The Wall Street Journal
• Verified: The Next Threat, Scripps

Excellence in Audio Digital Storytelling, Use of Audio Storytelling

• Making Sense: How sound becomes hearing, Vox Media
• Saving the sounds of an ancient city, The Washington Post

Excellence in Collaboration and Partnerships

• “No Light. No Nothing.” Inside Louisiana’s Harshest Juvenile Lockup, The Marshall Project, NBC News, ProPublica
• The Return of the Machine Gun, The Trace, VICE News

Excellence in Immersive Storytelling

• Un(re)solved, FRONTLINE, Ado Ato Pictures
• Winter Olympics – Athletes to Watch, The New York Times

Excellence in Newsletters, Portfolio

• Black and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters, The Tennessean
• Cooked: The search for sustainable eats, WBUR
• The Brazilian Report newsletter portfolio, The Brazilian Report

Excellence in Newsletters, Single Newsletter

• Arepita, Arepita
• Bulletin: Les bonne infos (The good news), Bulletin
• Cannabis CT, Hearst Connecticut Media Group
• Detroit Documenters, Outlier Media
• The Food Section, The Food Section

Excellence in Social Justice Reporting, Portfolio

• Denied, The Markup
• Ghosts of Polluters Past, Grist, Voice of OC
• Prison Dispatches from Incarcerated Writers, The Appeal
• The stench of death: On Canada’s Highway of Tears, Al Jazeera Digital

Excellence in Social Justice Reporting, Single Story

• Inaccessible Cities, AJ Contrast, Al Jazeera Digital
• Postcard From Thermal: Surviving the Climate Gap in Eastern Coachella Valley, ProPublica
• Rising Up in the Heartland: Latino workers fight for pandemic relief, Univision News Digital
• This Rap Song Helped Sentence a 17-Year-Old to Prison for Life, Type Investigations

Excellence in Social Media Engagement, Large Newsroom

• How to Be Viral With Politicians (And Without Cute Dogs), LA NACION
• The Quarantine Atlas, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg CityLab
• VICE World News TikTok, VICE World News

Excellence in Social Media Engagement, Medium Newsroom

• Convincing The Unvaccinated, Detroit Free Press
• The Philadelphia Inquirer Italian Hoagie Bracket, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Excellence in Social Media Engagement, Small Newsroom

• Marshall Fire coverage, The Colorado Sun

Explanatory Reporting, Large Newsroom

• Gerrymandering, The Guardian US
• The Ongoing Crisis of Covid Behind Bars, The Marshall Project, Associated Press
• The Price Kids Pay, ProPublica, Chicago Tribune
• Ukraine Invasion, The Washington Post

Explanatory Reporting, Medium Newsroom

• Lessons Learned: Drought Then and Now, CalMatters
• Seize and keep: Civil forfeiture in Massachusetts, WBUR, ProPublica
• The Secret IRS Files, ProPublica

Explanatory Reporting, Small Newsroom

• Cabrini-Green: A History of Broken Promises, Better Government Association
• Germany’s historical reckoning is a warning for the U.S., Coda Story
• The Burning Issue, Grist
• The Wealth Vortex, Center for Public Integrity, Transmitter Media

Feature, Large Newsroom

• Devouring the rainforest, The Washington Post
• Portraits of fear and loss, The Washington Post
• The Badge and The Cross, Associated Press
• The Surfside Condo Was Flawed and Failing. Here’s a Look Inside, The New York Times
• Too Precious to Leave Behind, The Globe and Mail

Feature, Medium Newsroom

• “The Liberty Way”: How Liberty University Discourages and Dismisses Students’ Reports of Sexual Assaults, ProPublica
• Hell at Abbey Gate, ProPublica, Alive in Afghanistan
• Outgunned, CalMatters
• Surfside: Persistent Trauma and Few Lessons Learned, Univision News Digital
• The Jessica Simulation, San Francisco Chronicle

Feature, Small Newsroom

• Road to Ruin, Grist, CoastAlaska, Earthrise Media, The Pulitzer Center
• The Wealth Vortex, Center for Public Integrity
• Turned Away, Spotlight PA

Gather Award in Community-Centered Journalism, Overall Excellence, Medium/Large Newsroom

• Caring for children in the pandemic, Southern California Public Radio
• Meeting History: A Garfield Park Citizen Archive, CatchLight

Gather Award in Community-Centered Journalism, Overall Excellence, Micro/Small Newsroom

• In the Shadow of the Refineries, Grist
• Up The Block, The Trace

Knight Award for Public Service

• Banking on Crime, AL.com, Reckon South
• Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge, Nashville Public Radio’s WPLN News, ProPublica
• Ghosts of Polluters Past, Grist, Voice of OC

Online Commentary

• Backspace with Sana Saeed, AJ+
• Future-proofing the presidency, The Boston Globe Opinion
• Jeneé Osterheldt, The Boston Globe
• Postcards From a World on Fire, The New York Times

Sports, Large Newsroom

• Future of the summer games, The Washington Post
• Going Deep and The Nine, The Washington Post
• Meet the Savannah Bananas, who’ve captivated fans and MLB. ‘We exist to make baseball fun,’ Los Angeles Times
• Stephen Curry’s remarkable rise to three-point king; How Ja Morant’s block conjured memories of LeBron, Jordan and Russell, The Washington Post

Sports, Small/Medium Newsroom

• A pickle(ball) in paradise, NJ Advance Media
• Leading Las Vegas: A British firm is upending America’s booming online sports gambling market, Fortune

Student Journalism Award, Student Portfolio

• Aloha ʻāina, The NewHouse School at Syracuse University, The NewsHouse

Student Journalism Award, Student Team Portfolio

• Gaslit, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the Cronkite School of Journalism ASU
• little victims everywhere, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the Cronkite School of Journalism ASU
• Printing Hate, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland
• Reflections of the L.A. Uprising, USC / JOVRNALISM
• When Home is School, NYCity News Service, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY

The Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award, Large Newsroom

• Pandora Papers, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The Washington Post, Nearly 150 global media partners
• Police officers convicted of rape, murder and other serious crimes are collecting tens of millions of dollars during retirement, CNN
• The Facebook Files, The Wall Street Journal
• The Pegasus Project: A global investigation, The Washington Post, The Guardian US, Forbidden Stories

The Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award, Medium Newsroom

• Broken Homes, San Francisco Chronicle
• The Secretive Prisons That Keep Migrants Out of Europe, The Outlaw Ocean Project, The New Yorker
• Wires and Fires, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award, Small Newsroom

• Ignored, Dismissed, Streetsblog
• The Spy Tech That Followed Kids Home, The 74
• Turned Away, Spotlight PA

Topical Reporting: Climate Change

• Extreme heat’s deadly toll, Los Angeles Times
• Mapping where the earth will become uninhabitable, FUNKE Zentralredaktion – Interaktiv
• The Climate Disaster is Here, The Guardian US

Topical Reporting: Olympics and Paralympics Coverage, Large Newsroom

• Future of the summer games, The Washington Post
• How Katie Ledecky swims faster than the rest of the world, The Washington Post
• Olympics visual portfolio, The Globe and Mail
• Visualizing the Athleticism of the Olympics, The New York Times

Topical Reporting: Olympics and Paralympics Coverage, Medium Newsroom

• My New Favorite Olympian, NBCLX
• Vox Video: Winter Sports Week, Vox Media

Topical Reporting: Olympics and Paralympics Coverage, Small Newsroom

• Anatomy of Philippines’ first Olympic gold medal,  FYT Media, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

Topical Reporting: Pandemic Coverage, Portfolio

• American Education’s Most Turbulent Year, The 74
• Covid Risk In Hospitals, Kaiser Health News
• The COVID housing crisis, Center for Public Integrity, Associated Press
• The Ongoing Crisis of Covid Behind Bars, The Marshall Project, Associated Press

Topical Reporting: Pandemic Coverage, Single Story

• How Colorado Caught COVID: The Third Wave, Colorado Public Radio
• Rising up in the heartland: Latino workers fight for pandemic relief, Univision News Digital
• Wolf of Main Street, Bloomberg CityLab, Bloomberg News

University of Florida Award in Investigative Data Journalism, Large Newsroom

• Inside TikTok’s Dangerously Addictive Algorithm, The Wall Street Journal
• Police Misconduct, The Washington Post
• Secret Prices, Questionable Tests: Using Data to Investigate Medical Care, The New York Times
• Zoning Divide, Star Tribune

University of Florida Award in Investigative Data Journalism, Small/Medium Newsroom

• Sacrifice Zones: Mapping Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution, ProPublica
• Security for Sale, Charlotte Observer, News & Observer
• The Costly Toll of Dead-end Drug Arrests, Better Government Association, Chicago Sun-Times, USC Annenberg National Health Fellowship, The Circuit
• Wires and Fires, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Judges for the 2022 OJAs included:

• Adriana Lacy, Digital and Audience Engagement Editor, Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, and Journalism Lecturer, Brandeis University
• Alfred Hermida, Journalism Professor, The University of British Columbia
• Alicia Montgomery, Executive Producer, Podcasts, Slate Magazine
• Andrew Nguyen, Newsroom Developer, Boston Globe Media
• Annemarie Dooling, Managing Editor of Experimentation, McClatchy
• Ayan Mittra, Senior Managing Editor, The Texas Tribune
• Benét Wilson, Director of Media and Journalism Programs, Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism Fellowship
• Brakkton Booker, Political Correspondent, POLITICO
• Brandon Wall, Director of Newsroom Strategy and Experiments, BuzzFeed
• Brittany Grant, Director, Audience Development, Marketing & Synergy, ESPN
• Brittney Mcnamara, Features Director, Teen Vogue
• Camilo Jiménez Santofimio, Director of Operations and Strategy, Radio Ambulante Studio
• Christine Loureiro, Digital Editor, Toronto Star
• Cynthia DuBose, Vice President, Audience Growth & Content Monetization, McClatchy
• Daniel Cooney, Social Media Producer/Coordinator, PBS NewsHour
• Darrell M Allen, Deputy Director of Digital Design, The Associated Press
• Emily Woodruff, Health Reporter, The Times-Picayune
• Eric Lubbers, Chief Technology Officer, The Colorado Sun
• Farrah Fazal, Supervising Field Producer, Jupiter Entertainment
• Federica Cherubini, Head of Leadership Development, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
• Flor Coehlo, New Media Research and Training Manager, La Nacion
• Francesca Panetta, Alternate Realities Curator, Sheffield DocFest
• Heather Bryant, Interim Executive Director, Tiny News Collective
• Irene McKisson, Principal Executive, AZ Luminaria
• Janice Neil, Associate Professor, Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan University
• Jessi Hempel, Senior Editor at Large, LinkedIn
• Jo Kelly, Global Head of Publisher Product Specialists, Twitter
• Jon Laurence, Supervising Executive Producer, AJ+
• Justin Worland, Senior Correspondent, TIME
• Kainaz Amaria, National Visual Enterprise Editor, The Washington Post
• Kaizar Campwala, CEO, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting
• Khushbu Shah, Editorial Director, Rest of World
• Lauren Colley, Senior Curation Lead, Twitter
• Lory Martinez, CEO & Founder, Studio Ochenta
• Mark Mahoney, Editorial Page Editor, The Daily Gazette
• Matt Frehner, Head of Visual Journalism, The Globe and Mail
• Megan O’Toole, Senior Editor, Middle East Eye and Al Jazeera
• Michael Bolden, Chief Executive Officer, American Press Institute
• Neeti Upadhye, Supervising Producer, The Washington Post
• Niketa Patel, Senior Director, Partnerships & Platforms, The 19th
• P. Claire Dodson, Senior Entertainment Editor, Teen Vogue
• Paul Cheung, Chief Executive Officer, Center for Public Integrity
• Rebecca Zamon, Audience Growth Manager, The Globe and Mail
• Rhon Flatts, Supervising Editorial Producer, NowThis
• Rich Jaroslovsky, Vice President of Content & Chief Journalist, SmartNews, Inc.
• Rodney Gibbs, Senior Directory, Strategy & Innovation, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Rubina Madan Fillion, Director of Strategy, Opinion, The New York Times
• Russ Torres, Vice President of Digital Video Content and Strategy, USA TODAY NETWORK
• Ruxandra Guidi, Podcast Editor, Fonografia Collective
• Sara Yasin, Managing Editor, Los Angeles Times
• Shannon Osaka, Climate Reporter, The Washington Post
• Shazna Nessa, Global Head of Visuals, The Wall Street Journal
• Thomas Seymat, Editorial Projects and Development Manager, Euronews
• Tom McKenna, Supervising Producer, Social Video, NowThis
• Tory Starr, Director, Digital & Social Content Innovation, GBH
• Troy Thibodeaux, Director of Digital News, The Associated Press
• Tyson Evans, Chief Product Officer, ProPublica
• Viktorija Mickute, Senior Producer, Al Jazeera Contrast
• Will Federman, Senior Director, AP News, The Associated Press

Note: Judges were recused from reviewing entries from their own organizations. For 2022, no finalists and winners were selected for the category Digital Video Storytelling, Short Form, Large Newsroom.