Johannesburg - IOL's
campaign won Best in Social Media Engagement at the WAN-IFRA 2018 African Digital Media Awards in Johannesburg on Friday night.
The campaign, which ran during Women's Month, honoured victims of gender-based violence by telling the stories of 31 women who had been murdered, many of them by their intimate partners.
"We wanted these women to be more than today's headline, or a statistic to be trotted out when it is time to report on the fight against crime. They were women with hopes and dreams and they need to be remembered," said IOL editor Riana Howa.
Media organisations from six different countries were included in the shortlist of this year's African Digital Media Awards, which is organised by WAN-IFRA The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. There were also three new categories for 2018 - Best Reader Revenue Initiative, Best Branded Content Project, Best Digital News Startup.
Independent Media were also runners-up in the Best Branded Content Project category for their coverage of this year's BRICS Media Forum in South Africa and the Best Digital Marketing Campaign category for "Connecting South Africans".
Winners of the African Digital Media Awards are automatically entered into the World Digital Media Awards competition.
"We've been excited to see how the African Digital Media Awards have developed over the last 3 years. The quality has always been high — with some going on to beat all competition to a World Award. Fast forward to 2018 and we have a really good mix of grassroots startups as well as big players, and a superb jury.” said Nick Tjaardstra, Director Europe & Africa, WAN-IFRA.