Pipeline was recognized as the best blog under the print division for daily newspapers by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) for its 17th Best in Business competition, which honors excellence in business and financial journalism across all news platforms.

Pipeline includes a handful of contributors who maintain the niche site dedicated to Marcellus Shale news. The team includes editor Erich Schwartzel, Elisabeth Ponsot, Laura Olson, Laura Malt Schneiderman and Steve Mellon. It is overseen by Deputy Managing Editor Mary Leonard.

Pipeline was launched in February of last year and is dedicated to coverage of the Marcellus Shale boom in Pennsylvania. Since the site's launch, Pipeline was also named Best Specialty Site at the 2011 Online News Association award ceremony in Boston. 

The project was launched thanks to a grant from J-Lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism at American University.

You can view the full list of SABEW winners here.

Pipeline, the Post-Gazette's site dedicated to Marcellus Shale news, won online journalism's highest honor Saturday night, taking the prize for Best Specialty Site at the Online Journalism Awards ceremony in Boston.

Pipeline (www.post-gazette.com/pipeline) won the prize for niche site housed within a traditional newsroom, besting national competition like USAToday and tying with NPRMusic.

The judges called Pipeline an "innovative partnership on a very important story" and "a hard and an admirable journalistic endeavor." The Online Journalism Awards is the most important online journalism competition in the nation, and was presented before 1,200 digital news practitioners at the annual convention.

The site launched in late February as part of the Post-Gazette's ongoing coverage of the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom and brings together a team of local news partners also exploring the issue.

Pipeline is run by a team including project leader Erich Schwartzel, Elisabeth Ponsot, Laura Olson, Laura Schneiderman, Steve Mellon and Matt Kennedy. It is overseen by Deputy Managing Editor Mary Leonard.

Pipeline launched with a grant from J-Lab, the Institute for Interactive Journalism at American University.

"This award is both a tribute to a remarkable team and a symbol of the PG's evolution to a news gathering company operating on many platforms," said David M. Shribman, executive editor. "This is both a moment of pride and a symbol of our commitment."

Erich Schwartzel is the editor of Pipeline, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's specialty news site on natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale. Erich lead the Pipeline team who won the 2011 Scripps Howard Award for Environmental Reporting and the 2011 Best Specialty Site award from the Online News Association. Erich joined the Post-Gazette's business department in 2009, and now covers natural gas drilling and other energy issues. He was the first reporter to cover a controversial loan arrangement that allowed Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon to quietly mortgage company holdings. The reporting led to Mr. McClendon's ouster as chairmain of the company and earned Erich the most pretigious award given by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, the 2012 G. Richard Dew Award for Journalistic Service. He's the host of "In the Pipeline," a weekly video round-up of energy news and analysis. Prior to arriving at the Post-Gazette, he worked as an editorial assistant and correspondent for the Boston Globe. Originally from Latrobe, Pa., Erich graduated summa cum laude from Boston University in 2009. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

 

Laura Olson covers state government and politics for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, with an emphasis on the debate over the booming Marcellus Shale drilling industry. Her work has included tracking the negotiations surrounding the creation of a drilling impact fee, digging into campaign contributions of those serving on a commission aimed at changing state oversight of drillers, and explaining how those rules and revenues affect counties where gas extraction occurs. She also aggregates the top articles related to shale gas into a daily blog post. Laura holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and political science from Northwestern University. 

  

Laura Malt Schneiderman has developed online interactive information applications for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for four years. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Laura began her career with Crain Communications in Washington, D.C., covering business news and later, at Crain's Electronic Media magazine, covering technology-related legislation and regulation. She also worked at the Altoona Mirror, taking a statewide prize for her series about World War II prisoner of war survivors from the Altoona area. After eight years in journalism, Laura earned a master's degree in information science from the University of Pittsburgh and began developing interactive applications on and off the Web. Her work has included multimedia production and actor scriptwriting for an interactive training startup; database-driven applications for a variety of clients; and serving as the Web master for the Pittsburgh Technology Council. She has also developed and designed many websites. She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, Henry, and their children, Joelle, 10, and Jacob, 7.

 

Steve Mellon is a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photojournalist and web designer. He worked at newspapers in Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee before moving to  Pittsburgh in 1989 to work for the Pittsburgh Press. He joined the Post-Gazette in 1997. He lives with his wife and three children in Pittsburgh.

 

 

 

There are two words you hear a lot around the newsroom at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette these days: Marcellus Shale.

Marcellus, as it is known casually, is the sedimentary rock separating speculating energy companies from a natural gas reserve 600-miles long and hundreds of feet deep, stretching from West Virginia through western Pennsylvania to the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. It has energy companies swarming the rolling hills seeking to buy land rights to extract the gas with a controversial procedure that many assert has grave environmental consequences.

The emerging industry could add $13.5 billion and almost 175,000 jobs to Pennsylvania's economy by 2020, according to academic studies. It has been compared to the clamoring for oil in Texas and the gold rush in California.

"We were starting to see this land rush, gold rush, gas rush around us, literally under our feet," said Mary Leonard, the newspaper's deputy managing editor.

"Certainly we knew we had a politicalstory. We were seeing an environmental story and this is becoming a really big business story," said Leonard. But internally, those stories were covered without significant newsroom coordination.

In the first few months of 2011, the booming business has led to a new website, new partnerships and a renewed vigor inside the 225-year-old newspaper's newsroom. Marcellus is unfolding as the story of the next generation - and the Post-Gazette is positioning itself squarely on top of it.