LAS VEGAS — CNN.com today accepted the Knight News Innovation EPpy for its interactive, international, engaging and effective web site. The award, announced as part of the EPpy Awards ceremony at the Interactive Media Conference & Tradeshow, is sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
CNN received the award for finding new ways to gather and disseminate news and information, especially with its iReport initiative. iReport.com is the network’s first uncensored, unfiltered, unedited, user-generated online community. Its contributors receive recognition by having their material – once vetted and approved for use – appear on a CNN network or CNN.com. CNN has also created tools for sharing and tagging video, for commenting on the user-generated content and for viewing and rating videos across multiple categories.
Says Gary Kebbel, Knight Foundation’s journalism program director: “CNN shows creativity in using new technologies that allow it to combine the best individual contributions with professional reporting.”
The Knight News Innovation EPpy recognizes new ways of gathering or distributing news or information that help citizens run their governments and their lives. CNN.com combines the power of citizen contributions and perspectives with professional journalism to increase the scope of total news reports. While many traditional newsrooms have not opened up to citizen contributions to this extent, CNN.com invites everyday people to participate in disseminating information and having a voice in the way the site operates.
“This recognition from Knight Foundation is really for CNN’s viewers and users, who share their videos, photos, audio files and comments with us each day,” said Mitch Gelman, senior vice president and senior executive producer of CNN.com. “CNN.com’s users and the iReport.com community are the real innovators, and we are honored to provide an online destination for them to engage with the news and each other in a meaningful way.”
More information about the project can be found at www.CNN.com and www.iReport.com.
At the same conference, Knight Foundation also announced the 2008 winners of the Knight News Challenge, awarding $5.5 million in grants to 16 new experiments that use digital media to build community in specific geographic areas.
About Knight Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes journalism excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight Foundation supports ideas and projects that create transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.