Multimedia competitions

SNDies 2009: Meet the judges

It’s that time of year again when judges descend upon Chapel Hill for a weekend of collaboration, discussion, and intense debate over the best multimedia packages of the past year according to SNDies. I filled in last year as an annual judge, but this year I am honored to serve as both the quarterlies and annual judge. This means that I have been judging multimedia packages throughout the year, and now I get to select the best of the best to receive top honors of gold, silver and award of excellence.

We just had the opening dinner, and now the nine judges are looking forward to the next 48 hours of decision making. Here are are the eight judges that I get the privilege to work with over the next couple of days:

CASSIE ARMSTRONG
Cassie is a picture editor at the Orlando Sentinel where she oversees planning, coordination and production of the newspaper’s picture stories online and in print. She’s previously held the positions of design editor, deputy design editor and senior designer at the Sentinel. In 2006, she was the site chair for the SND’s 2006 Annual Workshop and Exhibition in Orlando. She was a judge in the News & Sports category of SND’s 2005 Creative Competition for the Best in Newspaper Design in Syracuse, N.Y. She previously worked as the A1 lead designer at the Indianapolis Star, as a page designer at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and as a reporter/photographer/designer at a small afternoon daily in Robinson, Illinois.

JASON COOPER
Jason is a designer/storyteller with an extensive background in web and multimedia development, animation, print, identity design, and content management systems. Most recently his focus has been on educational multimedia. Current projects include animating a graphic novel for the Navy intended to help educate and prepare corpsmen for dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as well as developing a portal site for the State of North Carolina’s e-learning resources. Previously he was an interactive designer at The News & Observer, taught Graphic Design at UNC-CH (his alma mater), and was a lead designer for UNC’s international award-winning Instructional Media Group.

SERGIO GOLDENBERG
Sergio is a professor from the Journalism School of the Catholic University in Santiago, Chile, from where he holds a Journalism degree. He is also a Master in Science on Digital Media from Georgia Tech, where he is currently pursuing his Ph.D. His research has been on interactive narrative, computational journalism and interactive television. In Chile, he taught new media and interactive narrative courses. Parallel to his academic duties, for five years he led the Web site development area at an important TV network in Chile.

TIM HARROWER
Tim has been an award-winning editor, designer and columnist at such newspapers as The Oregonian and the Rochester Times-Union. His first book, “The Newspaper Designer’s Handbook,” has been a fixture in newsrooms and classrooms around the world, translated into Russian, Chinese and Polish. His follow-up, “Inside Reporting,” is America’s most popular journalism textbook. He currently hosts journalism workshops and noodles around with web design and music production at his dog-and-frog ranch in the Oregon woods.

JAY HEINZ
Jay currently works as the Digital Production Manager for the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center at UNC-Chapel Hill producing and directing digital full dome planetarium shows and managing a design team. He also freelances as a multimedia documentary producer on projects around the world. Previously, he has taught documentary and multimedia courses at the UNC Journalism School, produced documentary videos for the Washingtonpost.com, worked as a multimedia producer for Lucasfilm and worked as a multimedia exhibit designer at the Computer Museum in Boston.

MIKE PLETCH
Mike is currently the Manager of Creative Design in the digital media group at The Globe and Mail. He has worked in online media for more than 10 years and he has held several positions including web developer, web designer and information architect.

RYAN SPARROW
Before teaching, Ryan was an award-winning page designer, photographer and editor at newspapers in Indiana, Kentucky and Florida. For the last six years, Ryan has taught in Ball State University’s Department of Journalism graphics sequence. His classes have included a high-level multimedia-storytelling seminar in which broadcast students, writers, photographers and designers develop in-depth interactive projects. In addition to teaching, Ryan has helped write Ball State’s new curriculum and is developing a version of it for The New York Times Knowledge Network. Ryan works as a freelancer and consultant for media organizations and nonprofit agencies.

JOE WEISS
Joe has worked as a photojournalist, multimedia reporter, designer, programmer, producer and editor in print and online media since 1996. He is currently a freelance interactive producer and the developer of Soundslides, a multimedia authoring application. Previously he was an interactive producer at The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., the director of photography at The Herald-Sun in Durham, N.C., and a multimedia producer for MSNBC.com in Redmond, Wash.

Good luck everyone!

[Homepage photo credit: SND Update blog]

Other posts that might interest you:

• SNDies 2008 concludes with nods to non-breaking features
• 2008 SNDies judging currently underway at UNC
• A case study of a 2008 SNDies multimedia winner: MediaStorm

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