Image caption Giles Wilson and Bella Hurrell, from the features team, accepted the award

The BBC News website has won an international award for general excellence in online journalism.

The site won the Online Journalism Award for a large website beating competition from the New York Times, Washington Post and Al-Jazeera English.

Accepting the award in Boston, features editor Giles Wilson said it was "fantastic recognition" for the hard work of all involved in the site.

Zeit Online, Flipboard and the Washington Post also won awards.

The BBC News website was praised by the judges in a posting on Twitter, reading: "The standard bearer, pushing the whole field forward. Strong in leveraging tech for journalism."

Editor Steve Herrmann said: "The award is brilliant news - it comes in the year following a major revamp of the news site, including a complete redesign. It's also been a year of huge news stories and we have been able to be increasingly effective at showcasing all the BBC's newsgathering potential and expertise on the site.

"We also launched our North America edition a year ago, and have just announced a further investment in Washington, to run an international edition of our popular Magazine section, with the backing of BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm, which funds our services internationally."

'Excellent work'

The awards were launched in 2000 and are administered by the Online News Association, in partnership with the University of Miami's School of Communication.

They seek to recognise excellence in digital journalism and focus on independent, community, nonprofit, major media and international news sites.

The Los Angeles Times and Pro Publica each won $2,500 and the Gannett Foundation Award for Innovative Investigative Journalism for investigations about corruption in a small California town and the high cost of kidney dialysis in the US respectively.

Online Journalism Association chairman Anthony Moor said: "What's most gratifying is to see the proliferation of quality work from next-generation digital journalists.

"While there is justifiable concern about the fate of numerous long-established newsrooms, there's a healthy amount of excellent work coming from a new class of publications that don't rely on broadcast or print to inform the public."