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APB Wins National FOIA Reporting Award Site Also Dominates Nominations for Online News Awards Nov. 3, 2000 By Joe Beaird NEW YORK (APBnews.com) -- APBnews.com has received a Society of Professional Journalists' national award for its FOIA-reporting efforts aimed at obtaining and posting the financial disclosure forms of all federal judges on the Internet. Award for government records reporting The site this week also received four nominations in a new, national Online Journalism Awards competition -- the most for any Internet news site. "This is further proof that APBnews.com is alive and moving forward," said Hoag Levins, executive editor and vice president of content. "What we're doing at APBnews.com works, and it shows that high quality journalism can be done on the Internet and can draw large audiences." Sunshine Award Levins was in Columbus, Ohio, last week to accept the Sunshine Award at the national convention of the Society of Professional Journalists. SPJ is America's oldest and largest organization of journalists. APBnews.com was honored "for the ongoing efforts of this online news organization to fight, even in the midst of a bankruptcy proceeding, to post judicial financial disclosure statements on its Web site," the SPJ said in an announcement. APBnews.com declared bankruptcy over the summer but has since reorganized under new ownership and continues to publish original crime and justice news daily. Online Journalism Awards In the Online Journalism Awards competition, APBnews.com beat out such news sites as MSNBC.com, ABCNews.com, and Salon.com for the most finalist nominations. The online awards are being presented for the first time this year by the Online News Association and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. APBnews.com received four nominations in three categories: Pulitzer Prize winner Sydney H. Schanberg's "Keeping POW/MIA Secrets" is a finalist in the category of Enterprise Journalism: Original to the Web. The "College Community Crime Risk" package is a finalist in the Service Journalism: Original to the Web category. The "Great Basin Murders" and "Crimes of the Century" features are finalists in the category of Creative Use of the Medium: Original to the Web. The Online Journalism Awards drew more than 600 entries from over 200 media outlets. Award winners will be announced at a luncheon Dec. 1. Joe Beaird is an APBnews.com staff reporter. © 2000 APBnews.com .