EPpy Awards

The Enquirer's Online Guru, James Jackson, informs me that BorgBlog has been named one of three finalists for an EPpy Award (given by Editor & Publisher magazine, the newspaper industry's main professional publication). Here's a bit of the notification we received:

Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek’s
EPpy Award - Finalist

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that your entry “BorgBlog” in the Best Media-Affiliated News Blog category has been named as a finalist in the 11th Annual EPpy Awards competition. We had an incredible number of entries this year, and your site has been nominated as one of the leaders in your industry.

The EPpy Awards ceremony will be held at the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Las Vegas, NV in conjunction with Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek’s Interactive Media Conference and Trade Show, May 18-19, 2006. The EPpy awards luncheon announcing the overall category winners will be held on Friday, May 19th.

The other two finalists in the category are:

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s “DayWatch” (Weblog of local news) on JSOnline.com
http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1

Kansas City Star’s “Crime Scene KC” blog on KansasCity.com:
http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/



A year ago I barely knew what a blog was, and it gives me particular pleasure to be able to tell my kids, who consider me a technological Homer Simpson, that I am up for Blog of the Year. (They've watched me kick the router box on our home network when my internet connection fails, so I can't exactly blame them.) If I win this thing, you can be sure I will wear it around my neck like Mark Spitz for a good long time until I have regained some of my due respect, or until I have to ask one of them how to load paper into my printer.

I don't kid myself. There is clearly a virginal quality to this blog which, after you've deciphered another several hundred sketchbook scribblings and Starbucks napkins, will undoubtedly begin to look a bit more worn around the edges. But I do think it's a testimony to what blogs can offer in the way of intimacy, candor and direct connection to those interested.

It occurs to me that there might be a larger lesson in all this. Had I been steeped in the culture of the blogosphere when I began doing BorgBlog, I might have tried something much more mainstream and conventional. As a neophyte, I simply went the route that felt most natural, apparently creating something outside the box in the process. I wonder how often childlike curiosity might help in other things we do in the news business?

Or, for that matter, in whatever business you are in?