Exeter Daily shortlisted for national award

The Exeter Daily has been shortlisted for a major national award, thanks to its army of contributors.

The website has been nominated in the Best Use of Citizen Journalism category at the UK Online Media Awards.

The others on the shortlist are The Times, the Guardian and the BBC.

This is the second time the Daily has been in the running for a major award, having lost out to the Guardian in the national Newspaper Awards in 2012.

Then, one of the judges said: "The Daily is a brave, innovative and ambitious attempt to build a new, local digital news model heavily reliant on user generated content and social media marketing... it will be a game-changer in regional digital publishing."

The Online Media Awards will be announced on Wednesday 11th June at the Grosvenor Marriot, London.

The Exeter Daily's editorial director, Marc Astley, said: "To even be shortlisted in these awards is a major achievement and testament to that is the company we will be keeping on the night.

"But the real credit should go to the users of the site, especially the hundreds of contributors who make ours such a unique proposition.

"We are honoured and flattered to be in with a shout of picking up such a coveted industry award and I would like to say a personal thank you to each and every one of our users for making that possible."

Exeter Daily digital director, Adam Stone, said: "I was really excited to be invited to join The Daily board in 2012 to help with the technical and creative challenges behind bringing the project to life.

"What we at the Daily have since achieved is nothing short of ground breaking. We wanted to create a platform that was not only very easy to use, but that also bridged the gap between traditional news media - for familiarity, while introducing the power of hyper-local citizen generated content.

"We believe that we have helped pave the way for the future of news generation and we're delighted that this is being recognised in national awards."