Cardinal News has won second place in a national contest for our speaker series.
Cardinal placed second in the Local Media Association Digital Innovation’s award contest in the Best Event category for organizations with fewer than 250,000 monthly unique visitors. The contest recognizes the best in digital media in 15 categories and is designed to recognize both large and small media companies for their outstanding and innovative work.
Village Media in Canada took top honors for Best Event, and The Houston Defender Network took third. In the large division, The Texas Tribune won for its Future of Rural Texas Symposium, a two-day event.
So far, Cardinal News has staged four free events featuring prominent speakers to address issues facing the region.
Last June, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, the congressman from Silicon Valley, spoke in Blacksburg on how the nation’s technology sector should be more widely distributed. That event was co-sponsored by the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center and the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council.
In September, Cardinal sponsored an event in Danville with Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers to talk about the future of manufacturing. That event was co-sponsored by American National Bank & Trust Company, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. Danville and First Piedmont Corp.
In October, Gov. Glenn Youngkin appeared in Bristol at a Cardinal Speaker Series event to talk about economic development. That was co-sponsored by the Bristol Chamber of Commerce.
In February, we sponsored an event in Clifton Forge where author Beth Macy spoke about how to combat the opioid epidemic. That event was co-sponsored by the town of Clifton Forge.
Cardinal anticipates staging other Speaker Series events.
Earlier this month, Cardinal won 21 awards in the Virginia Press Association contest, including a best-in-show, more than twice as any other organization in the online news category.