Video journalists from washingtonpost.com won 28 awards today in the White House News Photographers' Association's annual contest, including video editor of the year, which went to the Web site's John Poole.
The awards were announced after two days of judging in 24 video editing and photography categories. Last week, The Washington Post swept all four of the association's awards for still photography in the overall portfolio category, and the winner in that category, Post photographer Andrea Bruce Woodall, was named photographer of the year.
The 28 awards were the largest haul for any news organization in the association's video contest, which was part of a photojournalism competition called "The Eyes of History 2005."
Poole, 33, won video editor of the year for his work on washingtonpost.com multimedia pieces that covered Ballou High School's participation in the inaugural parade, the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall, gay marriage in Boston and 10 years of democracy in South Africa, among other subjects.
The award is a testament to "the quality of Post journalism and the strengths and dedication that the Web site has shown to visual media and visual storytelling," said Poole, a Washington, D.C., native who joined washingtonpost.com in 1997 and is now a senior multimedia producer.
He said it was significant that the Web site was the only online organization to enter the White House News Photographers' Association video contest and was competing against television stations operating in the Washington area.
Among five other winners from washingtonpost.com were Christina Pino-Marina, who took first place in the spot editing category as well as the spot news and sports video photography categories, and Pierre Kattar, winner of the same-day editing category.
In addition, Travis Fox took first place in the short form editing category for "Divided Family," part of a larger piece about an Israeli-built security barrier in the West Bank. Fox, Pino-Marina and Ben de la Cruz jointly won the photography award in general news for their coverage of the funeral of former president Ronald Reagan, and Poole and Jennifer Crandall won the day feature photography category for coverage of the American Indian museum opening.
In all, washingtonpost.com awardees took eight first places, six second places, six third places and seven honorable mentions, in addition to editor of the year.
The award for video photographer of the year went to Dai Baker of Britain's ITN. Other prize winners in various categories included WJLA-TV, WTTG-TV, WRC-TV, the BBC, ABC News, WETA-TV, NBC News and the National Geographic Channel.
The video editor of the year award was previously won by washingtonpost.com's Fox in 2002 and 2003.
Pege Gilgannon, who chairs the White House News Photographers' Association committee in charge of the video contest, said washingtonpost.com "had a sensational showing."
Referring to award winners who included Pino-Marina, Gilgannon said, "The big story this year was the women. The women have broken the barrier."
Steven King of washingtonpost.com contributed to this report.
