Washington, DC — AllAfrica's web site, allAfrica.com, is one of five nominees for the best news site by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, known as the Webbys. The 6th annual Webby Awards will be presented in San Francisco on 18 June 2002.
The Webbys have emerged as the leading honor for technology and creativity on the Internet and have been likened by the New York Times to the Academy Awards for the web. This year there are five nominees in each of 30 categories, including education, finance, health, science and music.
The other four nominees for news are BBC News, Arts and Letters Daily, Debkafile and Poynter.org. The BBC led all sites with three nominations -- for best news, best radio and best TV. Amazon.com and National Geographic won two nominations each.
The invitation-only Academy says that its 350-plus members are a diverse group of people "who have catalyzed great achievements on the Internet, demonstrated extraordinary talent in a traditional medium, or who possess in-depth knowledge of new media and comprehensive familiarity with a broad range of sites within a category. " They include filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, columnist and commentator Arianna Huffington, technology analyst Esther Dyson and Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
See: AllAfrica Shares 'Oscars of the Internet' Honors With Major Global Media Companies (2003)