GMA News Online wins Rotary award for new media

GMA News Online received the award for new media in the prestigious Rotary Club of Manila Journalism awards 2010 held Thursday. The Special Citation for New Media Approaches was awarded to GMA News Online “for its innovative and creative use of technology in the delivery of news and information in very interesting ways." This is only the second year that the Rotary Club of Manila has given an award for media innovation. Last year, the non-profit news agency Vera Files was the first recipient of the award. Howie Severino, editor-in-chief of GMA News Online, received the award on behalf of the news site from Rodolfo Reyes, chairman of the Journalism Awards 2010.
The Rotary Club recognized the online tools initiated by GMA News Online, the official website of GMA News and Public Affairs, in covering the first automated elections in the country last year. These included interactive maps, voting guides, and the election results displayed in real-time in the form of a clickable Philippine map, or what was branded an "election dashboard." An election app developed by GMA's New Media Inc. converted Comelec's raw election data into displayable information for the dashboard. The fast count on the user-friendly interface was a groundbreaking innovation for election coverage in the Philippines, drawing a record number of page views for the site on a single day — 12 million on May 11, 2010.

The board of judges was composed of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno, former dean of the University of the Philippines-College of Mass Communication Luis Teodoro, Rotary Club member Cesar Bautista, and former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno. Other journalism awardees were: Newspaper of the year – Business Mirror Community newspaper of the year – Sun Star Cebu Journalist of the year – Ed Lingao, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism Broadcast journalist of the year – Ted Failon, ABS-CBN Investigative reporter of the year – Carolyn Arguillas, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism Photojournalist of the year – Alex Badayos, Sun Star Cebu Radio program of the year – Siyasat DWIZ 882 No TV or radio stations were honored this year. The Rotary Club Journalism awards is one of the oldest in the country, and was conceived as part of the annual National Press Week. Its roster of awardees since 1967 includes some of the most prominent names in the national and community media.. – YA, GMA News