RiverheadLOCAL and SoutholdLOCAL win Best Website award
East End Local Media Corp., publisher of the independent digital news startups RiverheadLOCAL.com and SoutholdLOCAL.com, is pleased to announce it

From a press release provided by LION member Denise Civiletti:
East End Local Media Corp., publisher of the independent digital news startups RiverheadLOCAL.com and SoutholdLOCAL.com, is pleased to announce it was honored this month with a “Best Website” award in the Press Club of Long Island’s 2015 Media Awards.
RiverheadLOCAL.com and SoutholdLOCAL.com took third place in the Best Website category, behind LongIslandPress.com and Newsday.com, which took first and second place, respectively.
“We appreciate being recognized by our peers for providing our East End communities with quality online local news coverage,” said editor and copublisher Denise Civiletti. “We’re honored that a small digital news startup company like ours would be singled out alongside the sites published by much larger, islandwide news organizations.”
RiverheadLOCAL was launched by Civiletti and her husband Peter Blasl in January 2010. They launched SoutholdLOCAL in March 2014. The SoutholdLOCAL site is managed by editor Lisa Finn. The two sites, which cover the East End towns of Riverhead and Southold, serve up more than half a million pageviews each month.
“We’re grateful for the support of our loyal local advertisers and readers,” said company president Peter Blasl. “It’s nice to be able to tell the folks in our community that our work is being acknowledged by the Society of Professional Journalists.”
RiverheadLOCAL previously earned a best use of social media award in 2013 for its coverage of Superstorm Sandy and this year took home awards for online infographics, news story, and crime/police coverage in the New York Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest, where Civiletti was honored with a writer of the year award (second place) in a statewide competition.
The company is a family-owned and operated business. The couple’s daughters, Katie Blasl and Courtney Blasl, designed and built the sites. Both work for East End Local Media Corp., handling a variety of responsibilities, from reporting to video production and web development. East End Local Media’s office is located in downtown Riverhead.
Read more about East End Local Media in this LION member Q&A with Civiletti.
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