The Australian wins big on excellence at News Awards
Journalists at The Australian have scored a raft of wins at the 20th annual News Awards, celebrating News Corp Australia’s most talented journalists, photographers and cartoonists.
Journalists at The Australian have scored a raft of wins at the 20th annual News Awards, celebrating News Corp Australia’s most talented journalists, photographers, cartoonists and videographers in a live event linking newsrooms around the country.
The Investigation of the Year award went to The Australian’s media team – led by James Madden, Sophie Elsworth and Liam Mendes – for their groundbreaking coverage of sexual harassment and abuse allegations at Nine.
Madden singled out for thanks the many unnamed sources at Nine who worked with the team to bring the story to light. Since that toxic culture was exposed by The Australian, many of the most senior figures at Nine have left the company, not least chairman Peter Costello, who shoved Mendes and knocked him to the ground at Canberra airport as he was being questioned about the scandal. For that encounter, and for a series of video reports from as far afield as Ukraine and Israel to the back streets of Alice Springs, Mendes also won the Visual Journalism of the Year award.
It was the airport encounter with the former treasurer that was singled out by News UK chief executive Rebekah Brooks, presenting the award from London, who said that the company had “found a champion with this year’s winner”.
The Australian’s legal affairs correspondent, Ellie Dudley, won the Young Journalist of the Year award in recognition of her stories revealing the concern of many judges that sexual assault cases were being improperly prosecuted. Announcing the award from New York, News Global chief executive Robert Thomson said Dudley’s reporting demonstrated “the importance of keeping the powerful accountable and highlighting the judicial infelicities that can undermine justice itself.”
Dudley’s win brings with it a two-month secondment to the US and she will join the Digital News Academy annual study tour to America.
Columnist Peta Credlin won Best Specialist for her revelations that the Uluru statement was longer and had more attachments than pro-voice referendum activists had let on.
Interview of the Year went to The Australian’s Will Swanton, who secured the heart-breaking interview with world surfing champion Mick Fanning’s mother, Liz Osborne after the tragic loss of three of her four sons.
The Australian’s editorial design leader Sean Callinan won the Chairman’s Award, in a joint nomination with Steven Grice, with the pair described by News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller as “visionaries of the visual medium”.
The two men were innovators whose work behind the scenes used cutting-edge techniques such as 3-D illustration and animation, motion graphics, drone videography and data visualisation to bring stories to life, he said.
The Australian itself won the award for News Brand of the Year, capping off a remarkable 60th anniversary year for the newspaper. Editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn highlighted the energy and excitement the paper’s younger journalists brought to the newsroom.
“We have so many talented young journos on our paper and that’s a sheer joy, coming in every day, allowing the new generation to blossom,” she said. “Our company is very much about looking to the future, to what’s next. It sits alongside what Robert (Thomson) said about curiosity – what’s tomorrow going to bring?”
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