And the Walkley goes to...
December 3, 2015 8:18 PM   Subscribe

The Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism — roughly Australia's version of the Pulitzer Prizes — announced its 2015 winners at a ceremony on Thursday. Some of the winners won't be that interesting to an international audience, but here are some that might be:

Caro Meldrum-Hanna, Sam Clark, and Max Murc from ABC's Four Corners program won the top award for "Making a Killing," a report exposing the greyhound racing industry's use of live animals as bait to train dogs.

Margaret Simons and Dave Tacon won the social equity award for their report "Fallen Angels: The children left behind by Australian sex tourists" in the Monthly (previously).

Huw Parkinson won the multimedia award for a series of mashups of politicians with movies and TV shows for ABC's Insiders program: Bronwyn Bishop and Arrested Development, Christopher Pyne and Star Wars, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd and the Breakfast Club.

Sky News anchor Stan Grant scored the Indigenous affairs gong for his columns in the Guardian: "Indigenous or American, we need to protect black bodies everywhere" "Eddie Mabo's legacy reminds us that this is Aboriginal land, and you are welcome too" "I can tell you how Adam Goodes feels. Every Indigenous person has felt it" (previously)

Canberra Times cartoonist David Pope got a nod for a cartoon he posted on Twitter after the Charlie Hebdo attack.

Cartoonist Safdar Ahmed nabbed the artwork award for "Villawood: Notes from an Immigration Detention Centre" a non-fiction comic on his visit to an asylum seeker detention center, published in activist group GetUp's Medium vertical the Shipping News

The Weekend Australian Magazine's Trent Dalton won the short feature-writing prize for "The Ghosts of Murray Street" a report on the neighbors of a woman who stabbed her seven kids and a niece to death, and their community in the aftermath.

And 60 Minutes' Tara Brown and Rebecca Le Tourneau got the top TV current affairs award for "Catching a Predator", a report on the hunt for notorious pedophile Peter Scully.

Or you can just enjoy TV presenter and writer Waleed Aly unexpectedly ripping the guitar solo from Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" before the ceremony.
posted by retrograde (9 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
"The Ghosts of Murray Street" resonated. I remember the news unfolding as my partner's family and I were celebrating Christmas together. Horrific.
posted by flippant at 8:32 PM on December 3, 2015


Awwww yis that solo

Smoking. And thematic!
posted by Sebmojo at 8:58 PM on December 3, 2015


Oh my dog. Is there nothing that Waleed Aly can't do? Not that I'm complaining, he's one of our most incisive, compassionate and confident communicators, plus his wife Dr Susan Carland is equally awesome.

S'ok, I'm taking my fandom home now for a cup of tea, a bex and a good lie down so we can talk about the actual important stuff

Safdar Ahmed's work is tragic, and while the comic format makes the content accessible, it also shows how the topic and content are so bad, they can need be accessed through something a bit indirect, like artwork.

And Trent Dalton's The Ghosts of Murray Street is written with deep and appreciated sensitivity.

Well done journalists. Even the commercial news stations pulled some worthy awards.
posted by Thella at 9:42 PM on December 3, 2015


Huw Parkinson won the multimedia award for a series of mashups of politicians with movies and TV shows for ABC's Insiders program

While I'm missing most of the Australian political knowledge to really appreciate these, they do seem pretty great. Arrested Development works great for a politician in an expenses scandal.
posted by zachlipton at 9:45 PM on December 3, 2015


While I'm missing most of the Australian political knowledge to really appreciate these,

I almost didn't include them for that reason, but figured most people could follow along well enough to get the gist and appreciate the concept (s you have). If it helps, the Christopher Pyne one (my personal favourite) is based on this baffling interview (yes, he is actually like that), which also won a Walkley.
posted by retrograde at 10:29 PM on December 3, 2015


That Fallen Angels piece is a rough read.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:17 AM on December 4, 2015


I could've sworn we'd discussed Safdar Ahmed's "Villawood" here before, and there's a previous post about Australia's immigrant detentions that links it.
posted by ardgedee at 3:59 AM on December 4, 2015


Sky News anchor Stan Grant scored the Indigenous affairs gong for his columns in the Guardian: "Indigenous or American, we need to protect black bodies everywhere" "Eddie Mabo's legacy reminds us that this is Aboriginal land, and you are welcome too" "I can tell you how Adam Goodes feels. Every Indigenous person has felt it" (previously)

So a gong is a good thing in upside down land?
posted by srboisvert at 6:35 AM on December 4, 2015


While I'm missing most of the Australian political knowledge to really appreciate these,

Being hungover on a Sunday AM will help.

(Not that anyone really rates the Walkleys.)

So a gong is a good thing in upside down land?

Yes.
posted by Mezentian at 8:36 AM on December 4, 2015


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