WIRED magazine's blog, called "Threat Level," made clever use of a brilliant new technology in the service of the public's right-to-know, engaging readers in a crowd-sourced expose of corporate whitewashing of Wikipedia entries not favorable to a company's reputation. Wired issued this invitation to its reader community: "Share Your Sleuthing! Cornered any companies polishing up their Wikipedia entries? Spotted any government spooks rewriting history? Try Virgil Griffith's Wikipedia Scanner yourself, then submit your finds and vote on other readers' discoveries here."

From the Judges: "With as popular as Wikipedia has become, this tool finally inserts an air of accountability to those who edit the site to fit their own agendas."

Reporters and researchers from the St. Petersburg Times have partnered with Congressional Quarterly to create a "bold" resource for the 2008 election. PolitiFact is a database where users can sort news items by candidate, issue or ruling. They have also developed the "Truth-o-meter" which takes election coverage and judges the accuracy of the report.

From the Judges: "Others have attempted similar projects, but PolitiFact stands out for making detailed research easy to digest and filling a need for news consumers as the 2008 election approaches."

A handful of Kenyan techies launched a site for bloggers and citizen journalists to report, document and map incidents of political violence following an apparently stolen presidential election. Eventually 130 people uploaded incident reports. The site modeled grassroots information-sharing in a time of crisis and censorship.

From the Judges: "This site is a perfect example of just how far-reaching and important citizen journalism can be."

A one-woman citizen media project to document and inform a local community about real estate development issues. Armed with a digital camera, web production skills, mapping, and a mission to inform neighbors about construction projects, plans, meetings and its impact on daily life.

From the Judges: "This site houses an incredible wealth of information, and it's especially impressive for a one-person effort."

A multi-media reporting project that uses poetry as an entryway into documentary-style coverage of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica. This site was commissioned by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and made possible with the Virginia Quarterly Review.

From the Judges: "This documentary-style project puts a human face on an epidemic that is so often only reported with statistics."

In May, a tornado ripped through a community in Iowa. The Des Moines Register created a house-by-house color-coded mapping to chronicle the path of destruction and its human impact. The map includes before and after photography of homes, aerial photos, text stories, videos of survivors and uses a variety of surveillance camera footage and cell phone video. The package is breath-taking and chilling.

From the Judges: "Captivating and gut-wrenching ... The Register did an amazing job of conveying the destruction and emotion with this interactive package."

This user-generated news Web site from CNN launched in Feb. 2008. Simple Web tools invite anyone with a news story to share it, and to rate and talk about the others on the site. iReport.com's homepage is organized by a formula that gives prominence to stories based on their community activity. News that is fresh, popular, highly rated and that provokes conversation floats to the top of the page. The best stories are verified, expanded on by CNN reporters, posted to CNN.com and marked with an "On CNN" stamp. iReport.com has received almost 20,000 stories since it's launch.

From the Judges: "Beyond the sheer volume of citizen-generated news videos that it hosts, CNN adds value by giving higher play to the best and newsiest iReports."

A large-scale database combining all campaign contributions to members of Congress with how each official votes on every bill, illuminating patterns of money and influence that were never before possible to see without hours or days of effort. The MAPLight.org Web site launched May 16th, 2007 and covers all bills and votes in the current, 110th Congress. The site is updated daily within an hour of each vote on Capitol Hill.

From the Judges: "Every taxpayer should take a hard look at this site. Never before have citizens been able to so easily track the influences on their elected officials."