NPR social media specialist Andy Carvin received a Knight-Batten Award for innovation in journalism.
Carvin, whose job as the network’s senior social media strategist this year evolved into round-the-clock tweeting of Arab Spring protests, received a Knight Batten Award of Special Distinction honoring his pioneering use of Twitter in newsgathering.
The Knight-Batten awards panel chose Storify as this year’s Grand Prize winner and honored three other innovators with Special Distinction Awards. The panel selects winners for innovative uses of new technologies in newsgathering and civic engagement.
Carvin and his “Twitter community” were both cited for the award. “By using his Twitter account as a newsgathering operation, he has demonstrated how reporting can be done remotely, and created a highly engaged community of more than 50,000 Twitter followers,” said J-Lab in its award announcement.
Special Distinction Awards were also presented to West Africa Democracy Radio, Bloomberg Government and the Texas Tribune.
The Knight Foundation funds the Knight-Batten Awards, which are managed by J-Lab, a unit of American University’s School of Communication. (Current also is an independent unit of the school.)