Two WSJ staffers win non-traditional story contest

Almar Latour, executive editor of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones, sent out the following announcement:

The Wall Street Journal is pleased to announce the winners of our newly launched global newsroom innovation contest, TBD at WSJ:  In first place is Jason Bellini, a Senior Producer on the New York Video Desk for his project, Global Scavenger Hunt. And in second place is Neal Boudette, Global Automotive Correspondent and a 15-year Journal veteran for his project, In a Nutshell.

Both winners will get a cash prize and see their ideas realized on WSJ.com this Spring.

Part ideas pipeline, part creativity contest, TBD at WSJ challenges Journal staffers across the globe to submit a project based around theme of storytelling.

For the first TBD contest, we asked our newsroom for ideas to tell stories in a non-traditional way.  The prompt yielded responses from every corner of our global newsroom – from the Middle East to Europe to Asia to the U.S.; from reporters, editors, designers and coders.

Four of those respondents were chosen to move on to the next round as finalists —  Jason Bellini, Miriam Gottfried, Martin Burch and Neal Boudette — where they presented their projects, live, to a panel of WSJ editors.

Organized by special projects editor Francesca Donner, TBD at WSJ will launch new rounds soon, each posing a different digital or innovation challenge to the newsroom.