FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Mar. 23, 2022

Contact: Rohit Mahajan | 202.530.4976 | mahajanr@rfa.org

RFA online affiliate 歪脑 | WHYNOT wins at 43rd Society of News Design awards

WASHINGTON - Radio Free Asia’s (RFA) online affiliate 歪脑 | WHYNOT is among the winners at this year’s Society of News Design (SND) competition in its Best of Digital Design category.  歪脑 | WHYNOT’s special report Between Vision and Reality: the Gap in China’s Fight Against HIV won the bronze award for Design in Health, while its reports Preserving the Erased Decade of the Chinese Feminist Movement and A Guide To the New Hong Kong Under the Chinese Communist Party both received an Award of Excellence for Use of Commissioned Illustration. 

“All credit for this recognition goes to the incredible 歪脑 | WHYNOT design team,” said Min Mitchell, Executive Editor of RFA. “Visual storytelling is an essential part of 21st century journalism, helping to ensure that excellent content epitomized in 歪脑 | WHYNOT’s features resonate with mobile audiences around the world.”

“We are especially thrilled to be honored in a year when the SND received a record number of contest entries,” said Alex Zhang, Director of 歪脑 | WHYNOT. “As 歪脑 | WHYNOT enters its second year, this achievement encourages us to push our creativity as we develop new and engaging journalistic content.”

The three recognized reports examine the continuous spread of HIV in China due the inaccessibility of medication under its health care system, the “lost” decade of the modern Chinese feminist movement, and Hong Kong under the draconian national security law. These are 歪脑 | WHYNOT’s first awards of the year, having recently won an Online News Association Award in October of last year. 

Other winners at the 43rd edition of the contest, which had 1,984 entries – an all-time high – include The New York Times, Reuters, The Washington Post and ProPublica. The SND is an international organization for news media professionals and visual communicators – specifically those who create print/web/mobile publications and products.  

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Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media.  RFA’s broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” RFA is funded by an annual grant from the United States Agency for Global Media.