This year’s awards continue the tradition of recognising excellence in digital innovation, creativity, and audience engagement among South Asia’s leading publishers. With over 105 entries from media organisations across South Asia, the competition this year showcased the industry’s drive to push boundaries in storytelling, engagement, and technology-driven news experiences.
BBC bagged the gold award for the Best Data Visualisation project, The Quint for the coveted ‘Best News Website’, while The Hindu won top honours for Best Use of Video. Participating newsrooms competed in 12 categories including audience engagement, use of AI, video, data visualisation, digital product, amongst others. The top winner across all categories will be awarded “Champion Publisher of the year 2024”.
Acknowledging the significant role of small and medium publishers, WAN-IFRA continues to support and celebrate the success of news organisations with annual revenues below USD 5 million, ensuring broader recognition of impactful journalism in the region. Pluc (India) and The Current (Pakistan) bagged Gold across Video, Newsletter and Engagement categories.
A panel of experienced editors and industry experts evaluated the entries, selecting winners based on innovation, audience impact, and journalistic excellence. As a next step, all Gold winners from this year’s awards will automatically qualify for WAN-IFRA’s World Digital Media Awards, where they will compete with top digital projects from across the globe.
The winners will be presented their trophies at the Digital Media India 2025 Conference on 18 June 2025 at Chennai.
The winners are:
Best Data Visualisation
- Silver: The Hindu Group, How India voted: A retrospective from 1952 – 2024
- Bronze: The Hindu Group Kallakurichi Hooch Tragedy
Best in Audience Engagement
- Silver: The Quint, My Report
- Bronze: The Hindu Group, The Hindu Quiz and Quest
Small Medium Category
Best News Website
- Gold: The Quint, The Quint Website
- Silver: HT Labs, Slurrp – HT Labs ( HMVL )
- Bronze: NDTV Profit, NDTV Profit website
Best Use of Video
- Gold: The Hindu Group The Hindu Made of Chennai
- Bronze: Deutsche Welle, Dirty and Dangerous: Scrapping ships in Bangladesh
Small Medium Category
Best Digital Subscription/Reader Revenue Project
- Gold: Sakal, Sakal+ (Digital Subscription)
- Silver: The Hindu Group, Moving Beyond one-size-fits-all Paywall /Propensity-based Paywalls
- Bronze: The Hindu Group, A Gift for Keeps: Harnessing Reciprocity to Drive Digital Subscriptions
Best Podcast
- Gold: The Hindu Group, ‘In Focus’ by The Hindu
- Silver: Deutsche Welle, Love Matters
- Bronze: Pluc, The On-Air Series
Best Use of AI in Newsroom
- Gold: The Indian Express Online, Express Shorts
- Silver: Jagran New Media, AI Literacy: Bridging the Gap to Empower Newsrooms and Communities – Vishvas News
- Bronze: The Quint, The Great Indian Paper Heist
Best Use of AI in Revenue Strategy
- Gold: The Hindu Group, AI-based Video Chapter Generation System
- Silver: The Hindu Group, Personalized Recommendations: Leveraging AI to Enhance Engagement and Revenue
Best Fact-Checking Project
- Gold: The Quint, Scamguard
- Silver: Amar Ujala Web Services, Lok Sabha Fact Check Series
Small Medium Category
- Soch Fact Check, Pakistan’s elections were not transparent, efficient, or peaceful
- The Current, FACT CHECK SERIES: Punjab College Rape Case – The Current
Best Newsletter
- Gold: HT Labs, Slurrp – HT Labs ( HMVL )
- Bronze: NDTV Convergence, NDTV’s ‘Nothing Artificial About It’ newsletter
Small Medium Category
- The Current, The Current Newsletter – The Current
Best Native Advertising Campaign
- Bronze: HT Labs, Slurrp – HT Labs ( HMVL )
Best Innovative Digital Product
- Gold: Pluc, Farout – Pluc
- Bronze: NDTV Convergence, NDTV Profit (Mobile App)
Bronze: NDTV Convergence, NDTV Mobile App
Contact and Inquiries
For more information, please contact Magdoom Mohamed, Director WAN-IFRA South Asia magdoom.mohamed@wan-ifra.org, Thai Anban Chokkalingam, thai.anban@wan-ifra.org
WAN-IFRA, the World Association of News Publishers, is the global organisation of the world’s press, comprising 3,000 news publishers and technology companies and 60 national publishers’ associations representing 18,000 publications in 120 countries. With a mission to protect the rights of journalists and publishers around the world to operate independent media, WAN-IFRA provides its members with expertise and services to innovate and prosper in a digital world and perform their crucial role in society. The World Editors Forum is its network for editors.