Kentishtowner ‘commended’ for Best Digital News Service in Newspaper Awards 2013

Readers may remember our shortlisting alongside some big guns in the Newspaper Awards 2013 for the UK’s Best Digital News Service.

And on Wednesday night the winners of what some people call the “Oscars of journalism” were announced.

Of our category, the judges said: “it was another cracking year, where news media outlets are really being seen to flex their muscles in terms of innovation and creativity. As in previous years, some of the industry’s big hitters have been pitted against much smaller sites which despite their size have really held their own in the face of far greater budgets. The judges noted that this year’s entries saw regional publishers in particular seeking to use social media and community to drive editorial output and to hone an identity across multiple platforms. Due to the record level of entries, this category was highly challenging to judge but ‘very interesting and informative’. As one judge succinctly put it ‘there’s some really great stuff out there’.”

The winners? Guardian.co.uk, with huffingtonpost.co.uk runners-up. And we were commended (alongside sundaytimes.co.uk and metro.co.uk) with the judges saying: “Exhibiting a very nimble approach, [kentishtowner.co.uk’s] hyperlocal approach has paid off both editorially and from a business perspective.”

And there we have it. Not too shabby, we hope you agree, for a site that, in its current incarnation, is a little more than a year old.