Print: Newspaper Feature Writing Winner

Jack Marx, smh.com.au, “I was Russell Crowe’s Stooge”

Jack Marx is a freelance journalist and author of “The Daily Truth” blog for Fairfax Digital.

He has written two books: The Damage Done (Pan Macmillan, 1998), the best-selling autobiography which he co-authored with Warren Fellows, and Sorry – The Wretched Tale of Little Stevie Wright (Pan, 2000). He lives in Sydney with his wife, Kellie, and son, Declan.

His online account of the unfolding relationship between himself and Hollywood Oscar winner Russell Crowe was intended to alert readers to the invisible manipulations of the media industry and reclaim ground for the oft-maligned group of celebrity or entertainment journalists.

The story soon jumped from the digital arena into the pages of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and became prime fodder for talkback radio. It was reprinted in full in the London Times and dissected in the UK’s Daily Telegraph and the New York Post.

Judges’ comments
An utterly compelling, very personal story about the relationship between a powerful movie star and a journalist. Marx’s disarming honesty about his professional seduction by Russell Crowe reveals the dangers of celebrity journalism. Brave, highly
original journalism made possible by its publication on the internet.