"Sea Change: The Pacific's Perilous Turn," The Seattle Times Pulitzer Center-supported multimedia project examining ocean acidification and its global impact, won the 2014 ONA Online Journalism Award for Explanatory Reporting.
The ONA award is the latest in a series of honors given to the interactive multimedia series, including the 2013 Scripps Howard Foundation's Edward J. Meeman Award for Environmental Reporting.
The reporting project by environmental reporter Craig Welch and photographer Steve Ringman incorporated months of research that spanned hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and weeks of reporting on the ground, on the ocean and underwater.
Their five-part series detailed the threats of ocean acidification—from an in-depth look at the future of king crab and the story of one Pacific Northwest family of oyster growers who became climate-change migrants to exploration of the scientific debate over whether rapid evolution can help species adapt and the impact on vulnerable, seafood-dependent community around the world in Indonesia.
See the full interactive multimedia series by The Seattle Times, including articles, pictures, graphics and video.
ONA announced the award for "Sea Change" at its annual conference, which ran September 25-27 in Chicago and brought digital journalists together to share and discuss new approaches to multimedia journalism.
In addition to the award for explanatory reporting, The Seattle Times won the 2014 ONA Online Journalism Award for Breaking News (large) for its coverage of the Oso, Washington, landslide in March 2014.