Revealed: The Drum Awards for Online Media winners 2023

By Thomas O'Neill, Managing editor

June 16, 2023 | 7 min read

Publisher of the Year goes to PinkNews, Politico’s Elisa Braun is our Journalist of the Year and Lockdown Productions has picked up the Grand Prix.

The Greatest Menace: Inside the Gay Prison Experiment won the Grand Prix this year

Winners of The Drum Awards for Online Media 2023 were revealed in a show broadcast on The Drum TV earlier today (June 16).

Recognizing the best in journalism and online publishing, the awards scheme rewards original, clever and thought-provoking work across all digital platforms and is open to editorial teams and media owners of any size whose skill and commitment keep the public informed.

Spriha Srivastava, the UK bureau chief and executive editor of Insider, chaired the jury for our 2023 awards and was joined in the judging room by experts from NBCUniversal, HuffPost, The New York Times Magazine, Channel 4 and many other major media organizations.

The judges awarded the Grand Prix this year to Lockdown Productions for its eight-part investigative queer true crime podcast, The Greatest Menace: Inside the Gay Prison Experiment, which was released globally by Audible. The series delves into the history of Australia’s ‘gay prison’, established in 1957 as part of a government operation to eradicate homosexuality, which was at the time considered “the greatest menace to society”.

Patrick Abboud and Simon Cunich uncovered the painful past of the institution and the shocking human experiments conducted inside to ‘treat’ homosexuality, with the series shedding light on historical injustices, tracing their impact on present-day Australia and challenging societal attitudes toward queer identities. The series has led to increased public awareness of the systematic efforts of the NSW Government and NSW Police to eradicate homosexuality and has initiated a campaign for government institutions to acknowledge and apologize for their past actions.

Also among the big winners is ITV, with its Good Morning Britain show taking Best Use of Social Media and Editorial Campaign of the Year, its What You Need To Know podcast picking up Best Pivot Initiative and its new Here’s The Story sub-brand being named Editorial Innovation of the Year.

Delivering authentic and engaging coverage on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, Here’s The Story’s diverse team and commitment to covering relevant topics has seen it become a trailblazer, capturing the attention and trust of young audiences.

The team’s short edits of on-agenda news stories on TikTok have gained millions of hits, surpassing 100m views monthly, while the content has transformed the demographics of ITV News’ core Instagram audience, with the 18-24 age group now engaging with the content the most. (Watch our interview with the ITV team below.)