CNA's app revamp clinches gold at Digital Media Awards Asia 2026
It also garnered the silver award for Best Use of Audio for the Age of Anxiety podcast series at the WAN-IFRA Digital Media Awards Asia 2026.
CNA clinched gold for its app revamp in the Best News Website or App Relaunch category at Digital Media Awards Asia 2026. (Photo: WAN-IFRA)
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MANILA: CNA clinched two awards at the WAN-IFRA Digital Media Awards Asia 2026, including gold for the Best News Website or App Relaunch category.
It bagged silver in the Best Use of Audio category for the Age of Anxiety podcast series, which explored the growing mental health crisis among Singaporean youths.
The awards were given out on Tuesday (Apr 28) at a ceremony at the Digital Media Asia (DMA) conference held at The Manila Hotel in the capital city.
CNA has won 85 awards in the last 12 months, including 39 wins at Berlin World Media Festivals and New York Festivals and two golds at the 2025 Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards. It also previously won global gold for Best News Website or Mobile Service at the Digital Media Awards Worldwide in 2022.
The revamp of CNA's app - launched together with a new website design - sought to better surface CNA’s rich and trusted brand of journalism across multiple genres and formats, while giving users more control.
Armed with data from user surveys and focus groups, CNA adjusted the layout of the front page and added more content types such as vertical videos, podcasts and Visual Stories. Deep-dive reporting and features in sections like CNA TODAY, Lifestyle and Luxury were also made more accessible.
Readers can reorganise sections on the front page to their own desire, allowing them to prioritise the order of what they see on the app.
A FAST button was added to the main menu bar to give users better access to the popular swipeable summaries of news stories, generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) but always approved by a human editor.
Taken as a whole, the app revamp resulted in deeper, more meaningful engagement with CNA’s audience.
Said Lyn-Yi Chung, chief editor of Growth and Innovation, Mediacorp: “We set out to build a new version of the CNA app and website that works for everyone - from someone on their commute catching a quick summary or getting updates via shortform videos, to someone diving deep into a long-form story, podcast or documentary at home. Winning this award is gratifying, but equally important is the data showing that people are staying longer, exploring more and coming back across formats.”
AGE OF ANXIETY WINS PODCAST AWARD
CNA’s podcast team also made its mark at this year's awards with its silver in the Best Use of Audio category. Its special two-part narrative podcast Age of Anxiety, cast a critical spotlight on Singaporean youths and their struggles with mental health issues.
With one in three young people in Singapore experiencing mental health challenges, this podcast confronts the social and emotional toll felt within families.
Through immersive ambient audio and emotionally honest testimonies, series host Crispina Robert gathered intimate accounts from young people, their loved ones and child psychologists, making journalism a lifeline for a desperate generation.
There were no easy conversations - or solutions - but what the series did was to create space for important discussions to be had in this space.
