Truthdig.com, a Web site led by Annenberg alumni and faculty that is dedicated to providing insightful and accurate reporting, earned highly competitive Webby Award nominations in the politics category — alongside media sites C-SPAN and the Huffington Post — and the Best Copy/Writing category, alongside Vanity Fair.
Webby Awards, established in 1996 during the nescient days of the Web, are the leading international awards honoring excellence on the Internet and presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.
"We're one of the few sites that actually pay to send journalists around the world," communication professor and Truthdig founding editor Robert Scheer (pictured, right) said.
Annenberg-related Truthdig staff members include: publisher Zuade Kaufman (M.A. Print Journalism '05); managing editor Peter Scheer (B.A. Communication '04); associate editor Kasia Anderson (Ph.D. candidate); managing editor Joshua Scheer (B.A. Communication '03); contributor Larry Gross (School of Communication director); and contributor Marc Cooper (journalism professor).
"We recognize that for online journalism to succeed and be important to a democracy, it must be real journalism with professional writers and editors," Robert Scheer said. "Our goal is to inform and 'dig beneath the headlines' to find the real stories."
Truthdig was nominated for the politics category in 2008, running up against NPR, and in 2007 the site was nominated in the categories of news, politics and political blogs, beating NYTimes.com in the political blog category. In the news category, Truthdig was up against media giants BBC, NPR, Reuters and Salon.com.
The 2009 award winners will be recognized during the 12 annual Webby Awards from. June 8-10, hosted by Judah Friedlander of NBC's "30 Rock" and VH1's "Best Week Ever." Special guests include Lifetime Achievement recipient Lorne Michaels and Film and Video Person of the Year Michel Gondry.
