All Media - Sport News Reporting - Winner

Craig Hutchison, The Footy Show and Footy Classified, Nine Network, "Drugs in Football"

Across the codes, drugs in football was the biggest sport story of the year.

Craig Hutchison’s body of work broke the issue of drugs in the AFL with an interview with West Coast Eagles chairman Dalton Gooding. Concessions that Gooding made in the interview forced the Eagles to take a strong stance when star player Ben Cousins was outed for drug use.

Hutchison scored incisive exclusive interviews with footballers Michael Braun and Jonathan Hay, providing insights from the players’ perspectives and indicating just how widespread the problem of recreational drug use is.

Since starting out as a Newscorp cadet in 1994, Hutchison has focused on AFL across a number of radio and television outlets. He has hosted and fronted several sports and entertainment programs, broadcast AFL football on TV and radio and created and produced reality TV for the Seven Network. In October 2005, Hutchison moved to New York to establish a radio syndication business and worked as a correspondent on radio around the country.

He is a columnist for The Sunday Age newspaper and has contributed to magazines such as Inside Sport. In 2007, Hutchison joined the Nine Network to head its AFL coverage as AFL editor, with weekly appearances on Footy Classified and The Footy Show. He won a Quill award for outstanding news reporting in 2002.

Judges’ comments

Hutchison got an interview that everyone else wanted – a credit to his handling of his contacts and a sensitive handling of a difficult situation. He developed the interview well; he asked the big questions and reported across an issue that was undoubtedly the biggest sport story of the year.