Celebrating African news publishers with innovative solutions

This year, award-winning projects stand out for creating cutting-edge strategies focused on the needs of their audiences and covering issues that have an impact on the society – from public health to the future of democracy – and offer alternatives for underrepresented groups.

This results not only in more revenue, but greater engagement and retention of their audience.

The winners of each category are automatically entered into the 2025 Digital Media Awards Worldwide competition, where they will face top contenders from WAN-IFRA’s other regional awards.

WINNERS

Best Data Visualisation

Project: The Road to a Just Energy Transition
Company: The Outlier, South Africa

Unlike other investigations that focused solely on coal production zones in South Africa and the risks to miners, The Outlier wanted to help its audience understand the complexities of energy transition and how it would ’shift power’ across the country. Therefore, the team embarked on a journey through five provinces to document the positive and negative impacts of cleaner forms of energy. The feature is visually structured around the country’s electricity grid and explores various energy sources: coal, wind, solar, and green hydrogen. For the judges, this is ‘an important story that weaves different sets of data together through narrative’.

Best Fact-Checking Project

Project: Palesa’s Brave Discovery
Company: Food For Mzansi Group, South Africa

After a devastating public health crisis occurred in South Africa in late 2024 – where 22 children lost their lives to exposure to highly toxic pesticides – Food For Mzansi launched Palesa’s Brave Discovery: a multimedia strategy that included a multilingual children’s booklet, WhatsApp alerts, an audio story and a video series for social channels. The project focused on addressing misinformation, tracing the sources of the illegal pesticides, and empowering communities with accurate, science-backed information. Aware of the limitations of digital access, the booklet was also distributed in printed form, transforming it into an educational tool. The judges commented: ‘Its engaging and rich visual storytelling approach easily captured the attention of young audiences and the broader community.’

Best in Audience Engagement

Project: The User Needs Impact Project 360
Company: Pulse Africa, Nigeria

After observing low engagement and signs of content fatigue among its audience, Pulse Nigeria launched The User Needs Impact Project 360, a content creation strategy based on the User Needs Model developed by Dmitry Shishkin, a former BBC executive. By prioritising audience preferences and leveraging intelligent platform tools to evaluate content effectiveness across different metrics, Pulse saw a significant improvement in audience engagement across their multiple platforms. In the judges’ words: ‘The User Needs Impact Project 360 is a highly innovative approach to content creation, focusing on audience needs.’

Best Newsletter

Project: Elections ’24
Company: Daily Maverick, South Africa

Ahead of the most important national elections in South Africa, the team at Daily Maverick aimed to educate voters based on their readers’ needs. To achieve this, they created the newsletter, Elections’24. Each edition began with a listicle presenting the most relevant information, which readers appreciated for its ‘brevity and easy-to-read format’. The newsletter engaged the audience by inviting them to submit their questions and concerns about the election process – topics the team covered in subsequent editions. With an open rate of 78.4% and subscriber growth nearly five times its original audience, Elections’24 became Daily Maverick’s most successful newsletter.

Best Use of Video

Project: ’I don’t want to lose myself’: Carol de Swardt’s assisted suicide
Company: Netwerk24, South Africa

Through a partnership among four different Afrikaans publishers, Netwerk24 released a documentary chronicle series narrating the journey of Carol de Swardt, a 63-year-old South African woman seeking access to assisted suicide in Switzerland. The team sought to link an intimate, personal journey with a wider conversation around this issue, portraying not only de Swardt’s experience but also the legal, ethical, and medical complexities surrounding the topic. As a result, the publisher saw increased engagement from their paying audience, contributing to higher subscriber retention. The jury praised the documentary’s ‘very powerful and realistic visuals’ and commented that it ‘has been beautifully and sympathetically filmed’.

Best Digital Subscription Initiative

Project: Daily Maverick Shutdown
Company: Daily Maverick, South Africa

Since 2019, Daily Maverick has operated on a donation-based revenue model, with only 0.25% of their readers contributing despite a growing audience. To spotlight the urgent need to keep journalism sustainable, the publisher shut down for 24 hours – no articles were published on their website, nor were any shared across their different channels. The initiative led to a surge in donations, new advertising interest, and increased contributions from existing subscribers. According to the jury: ‘The campaign succeeded in its bid to grab attention, emphasise the value of the newspaper’s content to its readers, and boost short-term metrics significantly. Brilliant!’ And noted that, ‘While it created an immediate surge in sign-ups and funding, the organisation has committed to maintaining this momentum long-term’.

Best Innovative Digital Product (It’s a tie)

Project: Manifesto MAYHEM!
Company: Daily Maverick, South Africa

Daily Maverick gamified political manifestos with Manifest Mayhem, a card deck inspired by the colourful collectible cards of the 1990s. The goal was to promote a better-informed vote by making party proposals not only accessible but also engaging and interactive for the South African electorate.  Each card offered an overview of party positions and included direct links to detailed manifesto breakdowns on the Daily Maverick Elections Hub, encouraging deeper engagement. With WhatsApp as their principal distribution channel, the project received positive feedback from across the political spectrum, demonstrating its success in serving voters of all affiliations. Judges commented: ‘It’s a great approach to break down and share candidates’ programmes in such a complex election.’

Project:  MwanaClick: A Digital Revolution in News and Content Access
Company: Mwananchi Communications Limited, Tanzania

Aiming to provide interactive and engaging content for their readers and to reach new audiences beyond Tanzania, Mwananchi Communications Limited (MCL) developed MwanaClick, a dynamic, one-stop digital kiosk that brings together publications from MCL, other East African publishers and a digital library featuring financial and business reports. The platform also integrates an AI assistant, allowing readers to access content in audio format. The jury remarked the project’s commitment to accelerating ePaper adoption and reducing print reliance.

Best Use of AI in the Newsroom

Project: Hausa AI News: amplifying indigenous voices with technology
Company: Legit.ng, Nigeria

To address the underrepresentation of indigenous-language news content, Legit.ng is integrating AI into its newsroom operations to optimise and produce high-quality content in Hausa – one of the most widely-spoken languages in Nigeria. The publisher has streamlined content creation, proofreading, translation and fact-checking processes. The increased offering of news articles in Hausa has not only improved the efficiency of news production, but has also led to a rise in page views and the time users spend on individual articles. The jury panel said: ‘With its responsible implementation of AI, Legit.ng is ensuring that AI does not replace journalists but, instead, enables them to serve people in more ways.’

Best Relaunch of Digital Platforms

Project: Relaunch of Africa Business+
Company: Jeune Afrique Media Group, Tunisia

Africa Business+ is a B2B publication focused on corporate affairs and project development in Africa, launched in 2017. In 2024, the website underwent a complete redesign and expanded its news sections to provide quicker, more user-friendly access to information. As a result, the publication reported strong retention rates and a spike in subscriber engagement. Jurors described the new site’s image as clean, fast, and professional, adding that ‘the redesign and new platform, along with its enhanced features, provide greater clarity, context, and quick access to the economic news that matters for the continent’.

Honourable Mention for Best Advertising Product

Project: Die Burger Facebook Posters
Company: Media 24, South Africa

Die Burger, a broadsheet South African newspaper, ceased printing street posters due to cost-cutting measures and the Covid-19 lockdown. Seeking to preserve the art of poster writing, the team shifted their efforts to social media – continuing to explore new revenue streams and drive traffic to Netwerk24, Die Burger’s digital platform. As a result, the initiative not only saved time and eliminated production costs, but also demonstrated value to clients. The high engagement rates in social channels of this form of ‘fastvertising’ increased demand and highlighted its potential as an effective advertising tool.

JURORS

Adedeji Adekunle, Programme Director, Nigeria Media Innovation Program, Nigeria
Brian Veseling, Senior Editor, WAN-IFRA, Germany
Cherilyn Ireton, Executive Director World Editors Forum, WAN-IFRA, UK
Corinne Podger, Director, Digital Skills Agency, Australia
Denis Jjuuko, Communication and Visibility Consultant, Prime Time Communications, Uganda
Ivor Price, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, Food For Mzansi Group, South Africa
Joseph Adeyeye, Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief, Punch, Nigeria
Khalil A Cassimally, Head of Audience Insights, The Conversation, Mauritius
Kim Svendsen, Membership Director, WAN-IFRA, Denmark
Lindsey Jones, Strategic Advisor, Publishing Consultant Author, UK
Madeleine White, Editor-in-chief of The Audiencers (English)
Nick Tjaardstra, Head of Digital Sales (Subscriptions), KURIER, Austria
Paul McNally, Founder, Develop AI, South Africa
Penelope Nankunda, Content Manager, Digital, Vision Group, Uganda
Queen Mosarwe, Co-founder and Editor, The Argus Online, Botswana
Susan Makore, Director, Advisory and Insights, Women in News
Valérie Arnould, Deputy Director, Digital Revenue Network, WAN-IFRA, France
Tshepo Tshabalala, Project Manager and Team Lead, The London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom

• This article was first published here