Al Jazeera wins Best Website at Online Media Awards

• Senior Digital Editor Yasir Khan wins Online Editor of the Year
• Website also picks up Most Effective Media Tool and Best Use of Photography

Al Jazeera English has won the ‘Best Website’ award at the annual Online Media Awards ceremony held in London, along with three other awards and two commendations.

The awards hosted on Tuesday evening by The Drum were judged by a panel of journalists, PR professionals and media personalities.

Other organisations nominated for awards included Britain’s Channel 4, the Guardian, and ITV.

Al Jazeera’s senior editor for digital video, Yasir Khan, won Online Editor of the Year, while Al Jazeera’s Alaa Batayneh won the award for Most Effective Media Tool.

Batayneh developed the Al Jazeera Newsroom Toolbox, a collection of seven bespoke applications designed to help editor’s deliver content faster and more efficiently.

A multimedia essay titled Banished: Why menstruation can mean exile in Nepal picked up the award for Best Use of Photography.

Giles Trendle, Acting Managing Director of Al Jazeera English, said he was “delighted” with the wins.

“The competition was tough and we were up against the very best in the business, so it is a great honour to receive such industry recognition for the quality of our content and the talent of our teams,” he said.

In addition to the awards wins, Al Jazeera also received a commendation in the Best Commentary/Blogging category for online editor Barry Malone’s piece on why the channel stopped using the word 'migrants’ to describe the refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

The Online Media Awards, now in its fifth year, identify the cleverest, boldest and most original purveyors of news and views from around the world.