Steinbachonline.com, a division of Golden West, has been nominated for a prestigious award for its news coverage. Its news stories on the January, 2014 Otterburne natural gas pipeline explosion are in the running for top digital spot news coverage on the Prairies in the Radio-Television-Digital News Directors Association (RTDNA) awards. Steinbachonline is up against submissions from CBC Calgary and CTV Calgary.

Steinbachonline manager Dave Lehman says it's nice to be recognized for their big commitment to news and information.

"It's easy to build a website now, relatively speaking, but the difficult part is getting the information. You have to find the news yourself. That takes a significant commitment to having local news people who are going to go out every single day and get that news information and find the stories that are happening in the community."

Lehman says the strong news commitment at Steinbachonline.com has developed a big following.

"We have a very loyal audience. We have an audience that comes back many times a week, several times a day, to find information because we have a commitment to delivering that information and they understand that they can depend on us. It's a double-edged sword; once you go out and get the news and you get people to read it, then they expect it to be there. So then, when things happen in the community, they expect to be able go there and to read that information in a timely fashion. You don't want to wait a couple of days to get it."

The winner of the RTDNA award will be announced April 25th.

Lehman says, while award nominations are nice, Steinbachonline's main measure of success is the local feedback it gets from its patrons.

"We want to do what's best for the community so, really, that's the measure we use to to figure out if we're being successful. We're always talking to people in the community, we're getting feedback, we're working with local organizations. And, when they feel that we're meeting their needs and they feel like they know what's going on in the community and they're connected with other people and organizations, that's when we feel we're being successful."