In a competition that included the media giants, Reuters and the Associated Press, and regional newspapers, such as the Washington Post, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Orlando Sentinel, the Voice of Vashon, an internet radio and local access TV station on Vashon Island, earned a "Notable Entry" ranking for a 2007 Knight-Batten Award in the category of Citizen Media. 

In a competition that included the media giants, Reuters and the Associated Press, and regional newspapers, such as the Washington Post, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Orlando Sentinel, the Voice of Vashon, an internet radio and local access TV station on Vashon Island, earned a "Notable Entry" ranking for a 2007 Knight-Batten Award in the category of Citizen Media. 

The Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism reward novel efforts to involve citizens actively in public issues.  This program is administered by J-Lab, a center of the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism that serves as an incubator for innovative news experiments that use new technologies to help people actively engage in critical public issues. It is a spin-off of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism.

Susan McCabe, former VoV board president and host of "McCabe Exclusives" on VoV, and current board member Shelley Dillon put together the award application which included audio samples from VoV programs that focused on community participation.  "This recognition is just another testament to the quality and tenacity of VoV's all-volunteer staff.  I hope it  encourages more Vashonians to support this most important of endeavors -- locally grown media.  It's the lifeblood of democracy", said McCabe.   "This competition was a great opportunity to get national feedback on VoV's mission and our progress", Dillon commented.  "I am thrilled that they have found our organization worthy of this award.  Vashon is lucky to have VoV which is really all about participatory media.  We realize that home-grown, citizen media is a very important way to serve our very unique community."   The Voice of Vashon can be heard at www.voiceofvashon.org and is available to Vashon-Maury Islanders with cable TV on channel 21.