Guardian Australia and the ABC have won scoop of the year at the 59th Walkley awards for excellence in journalism for the story of how Australia’s spy agencies targeted the Indonesian president’s mobile phone.
The joint investigation by the Guardian’s political editor, Lenore Taylor, Guardian reporter Ewen MacAskill, and the ABC’s national defence correspondent, Michael Brissenden, appeared on both Guardian Australia and the ABC.
The awards, across 34 categories in print, television, radio and online, were presented at Sydney’s Dockside Pavilion on Thursday night in front of 800 guests.
The Guardian Australia writer Paul Daley won a Walkley for coverage of Indigenous affairs for three of his articles: “Why does the Australian War Memorial ignore the frontier war?”, “The bone collectors: a brutal chapter in Australia’s past” and “Indigenous Australians in wartime: it’s time to tell the whole story”.
The Gold Walkley went to another joint investigation – between Fairfax Media’s Adele Ferguson and the ABC’s Four Corners team of Deb Masters and Mario Christodoulou – for Banking Bad which uncovered practices among some of our biggest banks.
Of Banking Bad the Walkleys judges said: “Financial stories aren’t traditionally photogenic, but the team has elevated business journalism by capturing the human side and through dogged investigation.”
The stunning on-the-spot photos of James Packer and David Gyngell brawling in a Bondi street took out the award for news photography for Brendan Beirne and News Corp Australia.
The photos of the billionaire and the Nine chief executive punching and wrestling sold for $210,000 to News Corp in May after an intense bidding war.
The Australian’s shocking reports and photograph of a young boy holding up a severed head won best print news report for Paul Maley and Greg Bearup. The story called “That’s my boy: kids witness war’s horror” was about Khaled Sharrouf’s Australian son holding up the decapitated head of a slain Syrian soldier.
The Daily Telegraph’s editor Paul Whittaker won the Walkley award for the best three headlines for his Sydney tabloid: “Cardinal spin”; “The Grapes of Bof” and “Palmersnorus”.
The Walkley for outstanding contribution to journalism was awarded to Australian journalist Peter Greste who is in jail in Egypt for his courageous and ongoing fight, “not only for his personal freedom but also for a free press and an open democracy in the most difficult of circumstances”, the Walkley board said.
Andrew Quilty won The Nikon-Walkley press photographer of the year award for what judges described as a compelling and moving portfolio of local and international photojournalism.
The SBS online team won the multimedia storytelling Walkley award for “Cronulla riots: the day that shocked the nation”, an interactive which told the story of the 2005 riots through through the eyes of those who were there.
• The full list of winners is published at walkleys.com
