LititzDailyNews.com captured four top awards including Best Overall Digital Experience for its initial entry in the 2015 America East Digital Media Contest, a competition open to publishers of digital news from around the country.  LititzDailyNews.com, an independent, online-only news site that began publishing in September 2014, also captured top honors in Best Overall Use of Social Media, Best Use of Multimedia, and Best Use of Technology on the Web in Divisions I & II of the contest.

“This is an industry affirmation that LititzDailyNews.com has accomplished the goal of providing the Lititz community with timely, image-rich stories in a user-friendly format in only our first six months of publication,” said Lynn Rebuck, editor and publisher of the site. “I think we’re off to a pretty good start.”

Rebuck received the awards today on behalf of her publication at the awards ceremony held at the Hershey Lodge in conjunction with the America East Conference which draws major publishers from multiple states. The Best Overall Digital Experience distinction is awarded based on original content, use of multimedia, mobile experience, design, structure, and community participation. Rebuck writes all of the stories, shoots most of the photos and video, and uploads the content for the hyper-local publication.

“This is amazing,” said Rebuck, as she was handed the third award for her paper.

When LititzDailyNews.com won first place for Best Overall Digital Experience in two divisions, it took Rebuck by surprise, since LititzDailyNews.com was entered only in Division I, for sites with less than 50,000 average monthly unique visitors. A concurrent win in Division II, designed for publications with between 50,001 and 250,000 unique visitors, is a mark of unexpected distinction.

“All the honor and the glory goes to God,” said Rebuck.  “This is about what God can do through one person in this day of digital publishing, not about what I have done,” she said. “I am simply passionate about delivering a distinctive news product to the community and beyond.”