Guardian Australia columnist Stan Grant has won the 2015 Walkley award for coverage of Indigenous affairs.
The television broadcaster and writer won the award at a ceremony in Melbourne on Thursday night for a collection of three opinion pieces about indigenous Australia.
It was Grant’s deeply personal commentary on AFL star Adam Goodes which was singled out for praise.
Grant’s column saying that “I can tell you how Adam Goodes feels. Every Indigenous person has felt it”, hit a nerve with the Australian public and was one of Guardian Australia’s most popular articles.
“But this is how Australia makes us feel,” Grant wrote in July of the racism directed at Goodes on the football field.
“Estranged in the land of our ancestors, marooned by the tides of history on the fringes of one of the richest and demonstrably most peaceful, secure and cohesive nations on earth.”
Grant, the international editor at Sky News and anchor of Reporting Live with Stan Grant, beat out strong competition from Buzzfeed’s young indigenous reporter Allan Clarke and The Australian’s Michael McKenna and Paige Taylor.
“With his commentary, Grant cut through the noise to drive and deepen the national conversation on the issues of his people,” the judges said. “The piece on Adam Goodes, in particular, communicated the experience of growing up Indigenous in Australia in a way that felt game-changing.”
Other winners included the ABC Four Corners team of Caro Meldrum-Hanna, Sam Clark and Max Murch, who won the Gold Walkley award for their “courageous” expose of cruelty in the greyhound racing industry in Australia, the programme titled Making A Killing.
Sccop of the year went to Annika Smethurst of the Herald Sun for her story about Bronwyn Bishop’s use of a helicopter to go from Melbourne to Geelong, which ultimately brought about the speaker’s resignation.
Seven News won best coverage of a news event for its handling of the Lindt cafe siege.
Grant’s entry was for three columns:
I can tell you how Adam Goodes feels. Every Indigenous person has felt it
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
Grant is from the Wiradjuri tribe of Australia and has worked across Australian and international television, from the Seven network and CNN International to SBS and NITV where he hosts the channel’s flagship current affairs program, Awaken.
Clarke’s entry “Kimberley in Crisis” was commended by judges for its “new, youth-centric online” approach. “Clarke did terrific work from the field to share rarely heard voices from remote areas,” the judges said.
The full list of winners is here.
