Damn that Roanoke. They just won a small fortune of NPPA awards for slideshows and galleries. We didn’t win any. Looking through the winning entries, Roanoke’s work does stand out.
The first-place winner for best news audio slideshow was this one from Roanoke. The big plus for the story is the sheer amount of natural sound paired with appropriate photos. And its string of anecdotes from life in Mexico are both interesting and well told by the reporter. With most of the subjects speaking another language, the reporter was a well chosen alternative to give voice to the story. This same story, with all of the same photos, also won for first place news photo gallery. At HeraldTribune.com, we wouldn’t have made a photo gallery and a slideshow using the same photos, but it’s paid off for Roanoke.
The Gitner crew also won third place in the same news slideshow category for another part in its special series, called “Land of Opportunity.” This one exhibits the same strength in the amount of natural sound. But it’s told in the voice of the subjects, teachers at a school, instead of the reporter. I’m particularly impressed by one moment with a “show me don’t tell me” quality, where the teacher talks about how many of the Hispanic parents of her students aren’t well educated and then we cut to a scene with the teacher talking in Spanish to one of the parents who doesn’t speak English.
In best features audio slideshow, Roanoke came in third place for what is just a beautiful interview. That’s really why it won. The story.
What’s really amazing is Roanoke entered a “week in photos” gallery in the features photo gallery category and won third place. When you can do that, you’re really on a roll.
Roanoke also won two awards for best sports photo gallery. I have to admit, though, that they’re really not Roanoke’s most impressive work. The photos are OK and there’s really no storyline. Not sure what the judges meant in the comments here: “While there were only two eligible entries in this field, both were good work.” There had to be more than two papers that entered, right?
