Rutlandherald.com, Timesargus.com and Invitevt.com win awards
September 15, 2008 - The New England Associated Press News Executives Association has selected the rutlandherald.com and timesargus.com Web sites as winners of the Special Section category of the 2008 Web Contest for newspapers with less then 40,000 circulation. The award was for the Town Meeting coverage in March of this year. The special section included a bold new home page design focused on strong photos, video and graphics to engage the audience and bring them into the local coverage. Vote tallies and town meeting ballot results were updated through the evening along with photo galleries and video. The judges wrote: The “Town Meeting sections provide information that is important to the community in a format that adds value to the information provided. The have incorporated photos, documents, and reader feedback features that help engage the community.”
The state-wide arts and entertainment site, inviteVT.com also won the award for best Entertainment Section for newspapers with less then 40,000 circulation. In giving the award, the judges noted: “InViteVT.com is a great entertainment product that seems to focus on the things people really want from an entertainment section. The calendar feature is outstanding and is a useful tool for online users. The site gives visitors a chance to share photos, vote on certain types of content, and to post events, it's very "sticky". The folks at The Rutland Herald/Times Argus have done a great job with InViteVT.com.”
Launched in August, 2007, invitevt.com has more then 10,000 user-submitted event listings from around the state. Selected events are published in the daily Rutland Herald and Barre Montpelier Times Argus and the calendar is also available from the Web sites of these newspapers, rutladherald.com and timesargus.com. The site was developed with Small Planet, a web design and development firm in Rutland.
“These awards are a wonderful recognition of our commitment to provide Vermont with community journalism that informs and engages,” said Russell Glitman, Digital Media Director. “They also reflect the stellar work of our Web producers and newsrooms in presenting and delivering compelling local stories and services that are found no where else.”