USA Today announced their “Best of 2008″ awards yesterday. The awards are presented to outstanding staffers in a variety of categories. See the 2008 winners below:

Staffer of the Year
Winner: Lee Horwich – for outstanding multiplatform coverage of the historic Presidential election.

Impact Award
Winner: Cynthia Robinson – for managing deadlines while accommodating Editorial needs.

Across the USA
Winner: Team that produced the 50-state Report on High Gas Prices

Blogs and Community
Winners (tie): Gene Sloan for the online cruise community and Bill Keveney and Bruce Schwartz for their groundbreaking “Lost” package

Consumer
Winner: Gary Stoller for his guide to airline fees

Explanatory
Winners (tie): David Lynch for his package about the economic crisis and lessons learned from Japan’s experiences in the 1990s and the Money team for their coverage of the financial meltdown on Wall Street

Major Events
Winners(tie): Political team that produced our up-to-the-minute election coverage that was rich with detail, color and analysis both in print and online & Life entertainment team that contributed to our multidimensional and entertaining Oscar package

Opinion
Winner: Dan Carney for his editorials on the presidential race and “Who’s responsible for the nation’s economic mess?”

Scoops
Winner: Gregg Zoroya for his scoop revealing that the Pentagon had deployed 43,000 troops to Iraq and Afghanistan that were declared “medically unfit for combat”

The rest of the winners after the jump.

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