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Caerphilly Observer has been named News Website of the Year at the Wales Media Awards.

The 2020 ceremony was postponed because of the pandemic, and winners were revealed in a live online broadcast on Friday, April 30.

Caerphilly Observer was also nominated in the Community Journalism of the Year category for the sixth straight year – but missed out to the excellent Grangetown News in Cardiff.

It was the first time Caerphilly Observer had been nominated for website of the year and was up against fellow nominees WalesOnline, ITV Cymru Wales, Leader Live, and NorthWales-Live.co.uk.

In its citation, the award judges said: “A great effort from a very small team. Given the meagre resources and the fact they also produce a print version this is outstanding. Their efforts also seem to be paying off in terms of public viewings. So local news lives on. Anyone who has worked in a newspaper newsroom can only be astonished at the effort that must be needed to produce this amount of content with just a handful of people.”

Richard Gurner, Editor and Publisher of Caerphilly Observer, said: “Our success in the News Website of the Year category was totally unexpected. Our work to relaunch the website back in 2018 was done completely in-house, despite our limited resources.

“While this was technically challenging, the aspect of the award I’m most proud of is the praise judges gave us with regard to our editorial content. We are very proud to serve our community.

“I’d like to thank all of our readers and advertisers for their support. The last 12 months has not been easy. In May last year we launched our membership scheme where readers can directly support our work and I’m very proud to say we now have in excess of 100 members. They all value what we do and see the importance of local, independent, journalism that matters.”

The Wales Media Awards are organised by the Journalists’ Charity. Full details of all the nominees and winners can be found at www.walesmediaawards.co.uk

Sixth award win for Caerphilly Observer

Caerphilly Observer first started publishing in 2009 when it was established by local journalist Richard Gurner. In 2013 it launched its free fortnightly print edition, which now has a circulation of 10,000. The website regularly attracts around 80,000 visitors a month.

It has won a total of six Wales Media Awards since 2015, including Scoop of the Year, Community Journalism of the Year and now News Website of the Year.

Faced with an uncertain future when the pandemic started in 2020, and without the backing of a large company, it turned to its readers by launching its membership scheme.