Art was just talking about how totally tubular ^[1] our local internet news sources that aren’t affiliated with newspapers or tv are and I mentioned how much I like the TC Daily Planet ^[2] (or the idea of it, anyway, on account of the abysmal state of their RSS feeds).

Well, a lot of people like the Daily Planet. The Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists love the Daily Planet. So much so that earlier this month MNSPJ awarded the Daily Planet first place in the 2008 Page One awards ^[3] for Best Web Site (Independent).

That was cool news presented by Twin Cities Media Alliance Executive Director Jeremy Iggers, tacked onto the end of his latest brown bag lunch with a journalist announcement. Then I looked at the whole list ^[4] (xls).

2nd place in that category went to MinnPost ^[5]. 3rd place went to Minnesota Monitor (slash-Minnesota Independent ^[6]).

These three publications are the only ones that won anything in any independent news website category (see also, newsroom blog and single news story). I mean, if I had to name the top three sites that fell into the category of independent news website, it would be those three, but I wonder if there were any others even in consideration.

Still, I’m pleased that MNSPJ even has a category for independent news websites. I kind of wonder how they’d stack up if you threw them into the mix with affiliated websites.

All three of those sites are among my primary sources for local news. None of the affiliated websites are.