Media awards name WAtoday’s legal, environment reporting best in state
By Emma Young
WAtoday’s work has won multiple 2024 West Australian Media Awards in what judges called an “exceptionally strong year”, with its writers described as thorough, dogged and engaging.
At Perth’s ANZAC Club on Saturday it was announced crime reporter Rebecca Peppiatt had won the legal affairs category with her exclusives collectively titled ‘The case of the missing millions’ on an alleged Perth Ponzi schemer.
WAtoday’s writers have been commended for their exclusive works on crime and environment. Credit: Composite image
Peppiatt’s extensive research stemming from tipoffs, leads, dead ends and contacts showed the benefits and success of thorough and persistent journalism, judges said.
WAtoday’s former resources reporter Peter Milne won best science and environment report for his continuing exposes on the environmental legacy of Alcoa in WA.
This followed several major awards in 2023 for his ground-breaking work on this issue, which judges said reflected “the benefits of doggedly pursuing a topic”.
The prestigious Matt Price Prize for Best Columnist went to regular WAtoday contributor Brendan Foster for his work in this masthead on topics including the push for a four-day workweek, Perth’s used car market and the Eagles’ coaching dramas, with judges finding his writing “highly entertaining, engaging and incisive”.
Foster’s reporting for this masthead was also shortlisted in the best freelance work category.
Brad Thompson and Peter Ker of the Australian Financial Review, part of the Nine Publishing stable alongside WAtoday, won best business report with their entry ‘Andrew and Nicola Forrest – Splitting the Fortescue Fortune’, which followed the money trail to be the first outlet to report that the billionaire power couple were separating.
The Australian’s Paul Garvey won WA Journalist of the Year, and the Beck Prize for Political Reporting, for his series examining close to 200 Administrative Appeals Tribunal decisions on Australian immigration cases, unearthing example after example of hardened criminals being spared deportation as a result of Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’ Direction previously little-known Direction 99.
“It’s notoriously hard for a journalist based in Perth to move the needle in Canberra,” judges said.
“Even harder to blow open an issue so politically sensitive – and so crucial to a government’s fortunes – that it ends up claiming a minister’s scalp.”
Judges said the work ticked all the boxes, combining a commitment to uncover the truth on a matter of high public interest with top-quality research and compelling narratives.
Another big winner was the ABC team led by reporter Kathryn Diss, who won multiple categories with their effort to tell the stories behind WA’s youth justice crisis. Diss also won the University of Western Australia Arthur Lovekin Prize for this work, which the judges said uncovered key details and held the government accountable for systemic failures in youth detention.
David Cusworth, an award-winning sub-editor with a multi-decade tenure at The West Australian and The Sunday Times, won the 2024 Clarion Award for his outstanding contribution to journalism.
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