Spotlight on Kumanjayi Walker case in NT media awards

Journalists at The Australian have been nominated in the prestigious MEAA Northern Territory media awards for the coverage of the death of Kumanjayi Walker and the trial of policeman Zachary Rolfe.

Journalist Kristin Shorten.

Journalists at The Australian have been nominated in the prestigious MEAA Northern Territory media awards for the paper’s groundbreaking coverage of the death of Aboriginal man Kumanjayi Walker and the trial of Territory policeman Zachary Rolfe.

Senior writer Kristin Shorten, editorial director Claire Harvey and Sky News’s Northern Australia correspondent, Matt Cunningham, have been nominated in the best crime/court reporting for Yuendumu: The Trial.

In a live podcast of the trial and subsequent exclusive stories – ­including the only interview with Constable Rolfe – Shorten and Cunningham investigated how the officer came to shoot 19-year-old Walker, and the consequences of that night.

Shorten is also nominated in the best news coverage category for her post-trial series, What Really Happened in Yuendumu. Her reporting provided the ­definitive accounts of the night of the shooting, an axe attack on local police by Walker three days earlier, and the domestic violence Walker perpetrated on Rakeisha Robertson.

She also exclusively revealed that senior police were ready to lay murder changes against Constable Rolfe within 36 hours of the shooting, and that nurses from Yuendumu had fled the troubled outback community hours before Walker’s death after they were ­attacked in the community.