RUPTLY YELLOW VEST COVERAGE WINS GOLD AT THE SHORTY AWARDS

MOSCOW, APRIL 18, 2019— RT’s social media project #Romanovs100 and the RT360 app received the highest honors at this year’s Shorty Awards—a prestigious competition honoring achievements in social media. RT’s global multimedia news agency Ruptly also took gold for its live coverage of the Yellow Vest protests in France.

Ruptly, RT’s multimedia news agency, won gold in the ‘Best Live News Coverage’ category for its broadcast of the Yellow Vest protests in France, beating out Bloomberg Media. Ruptly and RT journalists have reported on the movement since the first day of protests, broadcasting live from the scene of the clashes between demonstrators and police. RT’s footage has also been used by a number of French news outlets, such as Liberation and Franceinfo, to fact-check details about the protests.

#Romanovs100, the large-scale, cross-platform, multimedia project launched by RT to mark the centenary of the execution of the last Russian royal family, was awarded top honors in the ‘Best Images’ category. #Romanovs100, produced in collaboration with the State Archive of Russia, was offered across four platforms – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Over the course of 100 days, rare archival photographs from the Romanovs’ personal collection were published across the project’s accounts. They represent the most complete collection to-date of photos taken by the royal family. Internet users also chose #Romanovs100 as the winner for ‘Best Use of Facebook’ and ‘Best Use of a Hashtag’. In the ‘Best Use of Storytelling’ category, the audience selected #Romanovs100 over an entry by Netflix.

The RT360 app for viewing RT’s panoramic content was named the winner by both the jury and the audience in the ‘Best in Photo & Video Sites & Apps’ category. RT is one of the first international news media outlets to begin producing video content in the innovative 360-degree format. In November 2016, as part of the ‘Space 360’ project, in collaboration with Roscosmos and RSC Energia Corporation, RT delivered the first-ever panoramic video of Earth from space, as seen from aboard the ISS. In October 2017, RT presented SPACEWALK 360, the first panoramic video ever filmed in open space.

This is the 11th year of the Shorty Awards, or ‘Shortys’, a prestigious annual awards competition that honors the best of social media.