Balitang America of ABS-CBN International's The Filipino Channel is one of the 12 winners in the 2017 New America Media (NAM) California Ethnic Media Awards held in San Francisco, California.

The daily news program won for Outstanding Coverage of Voter Engagement of the 2016 US presidential elections.

In a post event article released on their website, New American Media wrote that “judges praised the breadth and depth of reporting, noting BA’s team took ‘the most divisive and unpredictable’ election in recent memory ‘by the horns.’”

BA Executive Producer Troy Espera thanked the entire team. He said Balitang America offered the most comprehensive 2016 US presidential election coverage in its program history.

“We not only followed the candidates, but we dug deep to find the Filipino Americans involved at every level of the election process – from official campaign surrogates, to delegates, poll workers, and of course voters – all proud Filipino Americans who shared their stories with us so that others in our Fil-Am community would see what real civic engagement looks like,” Espera said.

Espera said the honor is shared with anchor Gel Santos-Relos, BA’s video journalists Don Tagala and Steve Angeles, editors Danny Manansala and Jon Santos, graphic artist Mike Carrion, and directors Jonas De Leon and Sam Simbulan; to the freelance reporters around the country, and to the viewers of TFC who support the show every day.

Winners were awarded in different categories such as immigration, healthcare, education, politics, gender issues, the 2016 elections, among others.