The finalists for the 2023 Journalism Midyear Celebration have been announced by the Walkley Foundation.
Walkley Foundation Chief Executive Shona Martyn said: “The judging sessions went into extra time as the judges evaluated the top entries in highly competitive fields. Everyone who has been selected as a finalist should feel extremely proud. There was a pleasing breadth to the entries too with journalists from across Australia, from news organizations large and small, producing high-quality stories on a range of topics.
Winners of all awards will be announced at the Journalism Mid-Year Celebration in Sydney on 15 June.
TV and related categories:
Short journalism
Fleur Connick, Guardian Australia, ‘Rural Water Quality Surveys’
Claudia Farhart, SBS, “2023 Türkiye-Syria Earthquakes”
Paul Sakkal, The Age, “Operation Daintree: Daniel Andrews under direct investigation in new IBAC inquiry”
Long or special feature
Xanthe Gregory, ABC, “The Eugowra Flood Disaster”
Joey Watson, Guardian Australia, “Inside Australia’s secret torture survival course for elite soldiers”
Daryna Zadvirna, The West Australian, “My Ukraine: Inside the Warzone”
Coverage of community and regional affairs
Xanthe Gregory, ABC 7.30 & ABC News, “Eugowra flood disaster”
Melissa Mackay, ABC News, “Wrong Justice”
Hannah Walsh, ABC, ‘Parents get apology from Mackay Base Hospital nine years after baby dies’
Visual storytelling
Rhiona-Jade Armont, Dateline, SBS, “Now You See Me: The Search for Syria’s Missing”
Julian Fell, ABC News, “How the Seeds of the 2022 Election Result Years Ago Were Sown,” “Opening the Black Box,” and “What’s Your Personal Inflation Rate”
Daryna Zadvirna, The West Australian, YouTube, “My Ukraine: Inside the Warzone”
Public service journalism
Brooke Fryer, SBS, “Missing: The Unsolved Cases of First Nations Women”
Lydia Lynch, The Aussie, “Lydia Lynch”
Liam Mendes, The Aussie, “Alice Springs”
June Andrews Award for Freelance Journalist of the Year
Patrick Abboud, Audible podcast, SBS Television / SBS OnDemand, The Project / Network 10, “Patrick Abboud”
Caroline Winter, Apple Podcast, Sick As A Dog website, “Sick As A Dog: An industry in crisis”
Nina Funnell, news.com.au, “Justice shouldn’t hurt”
Our premium watch
Alexis Daish, A Current Affair, Nine, “Kim’s Fight”
Melissa Fyfe and Jacqueline Maley, Good Weekend Magazine, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, “Rethinking Rape”
Richard Willingham, ABC Investigations, “Doctor Shortage Forcing Sex Offender Victims To Await Forensic Exams”
Humanitarian Storytelling Award
Matthew Davis and Peter O’Donoghue, Foreign Correspondent, ABC, “Myanmar’s Forgotten War”
Tom Joyner, ABC News and ABC 7.30, “Somalia’s Pending Famine”
Ben Lewis, Colin Cozier & Josh McAtamney, Dateline, SBS, “Boys, Love and War”
Australia Media Diversity Award
Dan Bourchier, ABC, “Voice Reporting by Dan Bourchier”
Hagar Cohen & Raveen Hunjan, ABC, ‘Racism allegations lead to staff exodus’
Jessica Horner & Nicole Mills, ABC, “A Lens Rich in News”
June Andrews Award for Arts Journalism
Gabriella Coslovich, Have a nice weekend, “The art of theft”
Marc Fennell, ABC TV, “Stuff the British Stole”
Anna Verney and Richard Cooke, Guardian Australia, “‘Miles Franklin-nominated novelist apologizes for plagiarizing Nobel laureate ‘without realizing it”
During the celebration, the winners of the Jacoby-Walkley Scholarship with Nine, the WIN News Broadcast Scholarship, the Walkley Young Indigenous Scholarship, the first Esme Fenston Fellowship and the Sean Dorney Grant for Pacific Journalism will also be announced.
Entries for the Press Walkley open on July 1st.
