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The judges’ results are in, and Greater Long Island Media Group now operates the best news website on Long Island.
Greaterlongisland.com took first place in the coveted Best Website category in the Press Club of Long Island’s annual, island-wide editorial contest.
Second place went to News12.com. Newsday.com took third place honors.
The 2020 contest winners were announced Friday. The Press Club of Long Island is the regional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The recognition comes as Greater Long Island Media Group, Inc., publishers of greaterlongisland.com, is still completing a website redesign that started in the fall.
The new site went live April 1. Through the site, readers have easy access to news from all their local Greater sources, such as GreaterBayShore, GreaterSayville, GreaterPatchogue, and GreaterPortJeff.
Greater Long Island contracted with Driven Digital of Bohemia for the project’s technical and design work.
“This is a huge day for us,” said Greater Long Island founder and publisher, Michael White. “Running a 24-hour news website is a grind for a small group. Recognition like this is a real morale boost for everyone involved, especially considering we’re going up against multi-million dollar newsrooms.”
The company took home other awards as well.
Greater Long Island was recognized for designing the island’s third-best homepage, behind News 12 Digital (1st) and Newsday (2nd).
The team also won two top awards in two very competitive sports categories.
GreaterBayShore’s Wrestle Like a Girl video feature took first place in the video Sports Feature category. The feature was a collaboration between Greater Long Island’s editorial director, Nick Esposito, and the company’s head of multimedia, Andrew Theodorakis.
In the Visual section, Esposito teamed up to win third place in the Sports Photograph category (photo appears above) with GLI promotions head, Nick Marchand. This was a shooting and editing combination and a rare editorial win for a salesperson Esposito invited to last February’s Alex Vargas fight at The Paramount in Huntington, where the two started taking photos of the fight together.
The girls wrestling video from Bay Shore also won First Place in the Best Use of Video category in the New York Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest for 2020. Those winners were announced in early May.
“But the ‘Best Website’ award is the biggie,” said Esposito. “It’s just the shot in the arm we needed as we’re looking to soon cover news in Nassau County, as well as professional sports,” said Esposito.
“We want to be a household name in news across Long Island, and we will be.”
Photo: Bellport’s Alex Vargas at The Paramount in February 2020, when he defeated Antonio Sanchez Hernandez. (Credit: Nick Esposito and Nick Marchand)
Here is Wrestle Like a Girl:
