They’re high-fiving today in the halls of USC’s Annenberg journalism school. Alongside five nominations for California Watch, four for the LA Times and one for Bill Simmons’ Grantland, digital campus hub neontommy.com has landed a 2012 Online News Association (ONA) Online Journalism Awards nomination for their April 21 report about the fatal shooting of two Chinese graduate students.

The byline for the article lists (former) executive editor Ryan Faughnder, (former) deputy editor Tracy Bloom and NeonTommy staff. The group-effort breaking news track was of the now-familiar Internet kind that featured multiple, subsequent top-of-page updates:

Neon Tommy will compete in the News and Online Commentary, Student category against DePaul University’s already award-winning enterprise coverage of the Chicago neighborhoods served by the Red Line El train. Congrats to all.