WAN-IFRA announces 2025 award winners across Europe and South Asia

WAN-IFRA has announced continental winners of its 2025 Digital Media Awards, highlighting innovative journalism and technology-led projects across both Europe and South Asia. From AI-powered tools to gamified engagement strategies, the awards celebrate how newsrooms are evolving to attract audiences, drive subscriptions and uphold editorial excellence.

In Europe, Reuters took top national honours for Best Data Visualisation with its investigative project “Buildings wrapped in solid gasoline,” which exposed the dangers of flammable cladding and linked the Grenfell fire in London to wider regulatory failures. Regional recognition in the same category went to Colpisa for its visual exploration of the evolution of cycling uniforms in La Vuelta España, featuring interactive storytelling elements like horizontal scrolling and tooltips.

AI featured prominently among the winners. PRISA Media’s VerificAudio app, which uses AI to authenticate audio files and detect deepfakes, won Best Fact-Checking Project nationally. Göteborgs-Posten claimed the regional title with its in-depth investigation into a police shooting, challenging the official version of events.

In audience engagement, Norway’s VG was a standout winner. Its “Euro Prophet” football prediction game drew over 190,000 participants, while its “Video Revolution” project – featuring vertical live-streaming for the US election – won Best Use of Video. Bergens Tidende was also recognised for adapting video feeds to younger audiences through social media-style formats.

Subscription innovation was led by Aftonbladet, which used AI personalisation to increase sign-ups by 75 percent. VOL.AT’s family-oriented V+Premium product also demonstrated strong uptake, showing how targeted features can boost digital revenue.

Newsletter strategy emerged as another strength. The Financial Times’ “Europe Express” and The Telegraph’s personal finance newsletter were joint winners of Best Newsletter, while Freie Presse Mediengruppe was awarded for engaging younger readers in political discourse.

In digital product innovation, Amedia won for its personalised content engine “A very personal experience”, and the Financial Times was again recognised for its “Storyfinding” project – an editorial-AI collaboration that uncovered underreported angles.

Trustmedia’s “Trust Insights” project and VOL.AT’s “Story Premium” were commended for pushing native advertising formats, aligning commercial goals with user engagement.

In South Asia, The Hindu Group, The Quint and BBC topped the winners’ list.

The Hindu was awarded Best Use of Video for “Made of Chennai” and swept both AI revenue strategy categories with projects focusing on automated video chapter generation and personalised content recommendations. The Quint was named Best News Website and earned a bronze for its AI-driven investigation “The Great Indian Paper Heist”.

BBC won gold for Best Data Visualisation, and The Indian Express was recognised for “Express Shorts”, its AI-led newsroom tool. Independent digital players Pluc (India) and The Current (Pakistan) were also honoured, reinforcing WAN-IFRA’s commitment to supporting smaller publishers.

Other recognised projects included fact-checking initiatives, podcasts, newsletters and native advertising campaigns.

Entries were judged by a panel of senior editors and industry experts, with all gold winners from both regions now advancing to WAN-IFRA’s World Digital Media Awards, where they will compete against the best digital journalism globally.

WAN-IFRA represents 3,000 news publishers and tech companies worldwide. Through these awards, it continues to champion newsroom innovation, editorial integrity and the role of independent media in the digital age.

Source: Noah Wire Services