Print: Three Headings Winner

Warwick McFadyen, The Age, “Heads and Tales”

Warwick McFadyen has been a journalist with The Age and The Sunday Age for almost 20 years. This is his second nomination and his first Walkley win.

His three feature-page headlines used the extra space and scope of the editorial and Insight pages for allusion and wit. “Tap, tap,tap. Is that Big Brother at the door?” relied on several metaphors working together to draw out the essential thread of the related editorial about the threat to privacy from surveillance operations. “They crave paradise and put up a market lot”, a play on Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, lamented all that is lost in the name of progress. “Cheap petrol? Tanks for the memory” was a classic interplay between words and imagery.

Judges’ comments
McFadyen’s headlines were inviting while telling the reader just what to expect.