The Independent has been named digital publisher of the year as it took home the top prize at an awards ceremony in London.
This publication was recognised as the Best Digital Publishing Company 2025 at the Association of Publishers’ annual awards competition.
Praising the company for balancing “commercial success with impactful journalism”, judges at this year’s Digital Publishing Awards said The Independent “continues to build its reputation as an innovative and forward-thinking digital publisher”.
Other publishers shortlisted for the top prize included Telegraph Media Group, News UK, Mail Metro Media, Arc Europe, Haymarket Media Group, and Immediate.
“I’m delighted for the whole team at The Independent who work together in the most inspirational and energetic way to create a media brand that richly deserves a global reputation for quality and innovation,” said chief executive Christian Broughton.
“We are now in our tenth year since taking the decision to go fully digital back in 2016, and The Independent goes from strength to strength, carrying our purpose of trusted and truly independent journalism into a bright future.”
The Independent was also shortlisted for editorial team of the year, and for best social good initiative for its Brick By Brick campaign, which saw the construction of two safe houses for survivors of domestic abuse, funded by contributions from our readers.
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The Independent was further shortlisted for the best research project for its Modern Progressives study, which examined the publication’s audience and revealed a vast collective of readers who rely upon unbiased evidence to develop their opinions on issues, and who are attracted to the outlet for an editorial approach that is simultaneously politically neutral and culturally progressive.
Additionally, The Independent was shortlisted in the best creative marketing campaign category after the publication and E.ON Next partnered up to launch the UK’s first dedicated Electric Vehicle channel, with a platform designed to better educate audiences and dispel myths about EV ownership.
The panel of judges said: “Over the past year, The Independent has invested in research, data, and talent to ensure continued growth in audiences, engagement, and revenues – both in the UK and in the US and internationally.
“Our Digital Publisher of the Year winner has demonstrated how to balance commercial success with impactful journalism – The Independent continues to build its reputation as an innovative and forward-thinking digital publisher.”
It comes just weeks after The Independent’s correspondent Rebecca Thomas was named Health Journalist of the Year at the Press Awards 2025, having also taken home the top prize in the British Journalism Awards.
Ms Thomas’s work exposed a case of an autistic man who had been trapped in dementia care units and A&E wards for 10 years, a “culture of fear” that allowed nurses to abuse their patients and a scandal of sexual assault of patients within NHS mental health trusts.
Kim Sengupta, The Independent’s late world affairs editor, who died in July, was also highly commended in the foreign affairs journalism category at the British Journalism Awards. After reports covering the war in Ukraine and the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, the judges praised the “typically vivid reporting” of one of the “finest foreign correspondents of our time”.
Sengupta and Ms Thomas were two of the six nominees from The Independent in this year’s British Journalism Awards. The others were special correspondent Zoe Beaty, crime correspondent Amy-Clare Martin, social affairs correspondent Holly Bancroft and freelancer David James Smith.
The Independent chief executive Christian Broughton said: “I’m delighted for the whole team at The Independent who work together in the most inspirational and energetic way to create a media brand that richly deserves a global reputation for quality and innovation.
“We are now in our tenth year since taking the decision to go fully digital back in 2016, and The Independent goes from strength to strength, carrying our purpose of trusted and truly independent journalism into a bright future.”
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