The J-Lab has announced the finalists for this year’s Knight-Batten Awards. Tish Grier wrote about the nominees in her Poynter column. Finalists included:

• • Council on Foreign Relations Crisis Guides

  • Reuters’ virtual news bureau in Second Life

  • The Deerfield, N.H. Forum — an all-volunteer online newspaper covering three rural communities previously lacking sufficient news coverage

  • TechPresident, a group blog breaking investigative stories and tracking the 2008 presidential candidates on social media sites such as YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook

The nominees compete for a top prize of $10,000 and some other honors that will be announced on September 17 at a symposium and luncheon at The National Press Club. A press release from the J-Lab says attendance is free but registration is required.

This would be a convenient point to remind (or inform) you that J-Lab also hosts a J-Learning site which has one of the neatest, easiest sets of free how-to guides for building interactive web sites with a news focus.

 at a symposium and luncheon, “Creativity Unleashed,” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.