The Walkley Judging Board plays a pivotal role in the work of the Walkley Foundation. Made up of senior members of the Australian media industry, the board members are appointed by the Directors of the Foundation and function as custodians of the Walkley Awards. They are responsible for judging the overall winners of the Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism after the first stage of judging. They also act as ambassadors for the Foundation.
Sally has won a total of four Walkley Awards, including the Outstanding Contribution to Journalism award at the 67th Walkley Awards (pictured left). She is a former ABC TV foreign correspondent, reporter with Four Corners, Lateline, Foreign Correspondent and the 7.30 Report, and was a senior contributor to The Australian, writing on terrorism and security matters.
Sally was Executive Producer of the ABC's nightly flagship current affair program, 7.30, from 2012 to 2015; and Executive Producer of Australia's premier investigative affairs program, Four Corners, from 2015 to 2022. She has authored two books, 'In the Shadow of Swords' and 'The Mother of Mohammed'.
Sally was Executive Producer of the ABC's nightly flagship current affair program, 7.30, from 2012 to 2015; and Executive Producer of Australia's premier investigative affairs program, Four Corners, from 2015 to 2022. She has authored two books, 'In the Shadow of Swords' and 'The Mother of Mohammed'.
Christine Ahern is a Walkley award winning journalist for the Nine Network. She is the Melbourne correspondent for the Today Show, filing reports across numerous programs including 60 Minutes.
She attended the University of Queensland in Brisbane, where in her final year she won the award for the most outstanding journalism student in Queensland. She began her reporting career at the ABC in Hobart before moving to ABC Melbourne, shifting to Channel 9 in 2004. Christine was appointed the Network’s US correspondent in 2014. As well as winning a Walkley award in 2021, Christine was a Walkley finalist in 2022 and has won four Quill Awards.
She attended the University of Queensland in Brisbane, where in her final year she won the award for the most outstanding journalism student in Queensland. She began her reporting career at the ABC in Hobart before moving to ABC Melbourne, shifting to Channel 9 in 2004. Christine was appointed the Network’s US correspondent in 2014. As well as winning a Walkley award in 2021, Christine was a Walkley finalist in 2022 and has won four Quill Awards.
Tom Dusevic is policy editor of The Australian, where he writes about the nation's political economy, social issues and new ideas to deal with our most pressing challenges. Tom has been The Australian’s national chief reporter, chief leader writer, editorial page editor, opinion editor, economics writer and first social affairs correspondent. During almost four decades in journalism, he has held senior editing and reporting roles at TIME, Good Weekend and The Australian Financial Review. Tom won a Walkley Award for commentary and the Citi Journalism Award for Excellence. He is the author of the memoir Whole Wild World and holds degrees in Arts and Economics from the University of Sydney.
Karla Grant is a proud Western Arrernte woman with an extensive media career spanning over 30 years as a journalist, producer and presenter. Karla joined SBS in 1995 as a reporter and producer. She has been the Presenter and Executive Producer for Living Black since she created the program in 2003. Karla has won two Walkley Awards, including being recognised for her Outstanding Contribution to Journalism in 2023.
Richard Guilliatt is a journalist and author. He has worked as a staff writer at The Weekend Australian Magazine and Good Weekend magazine, and a freelance journalist in the United States. His feature stories have appeared in The Times, The Independent, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. He is the author of Talk Of The Devil (Text 1996) and co-author – with Peter Hohnen – of The Wolf (Heinemann 2009). He has twice won the Walkley Award for outstanding journalism and his 2023 podcast, Shadow Of Doubt, won the Gold Award for serialised podcast at the New York Festivals Radio Awards.
With over 15 years’ experience Rashell Habib has held several senior positions at 10 News, including News Editor, Social and Digital Editor, and now Head of Digital News and Strategy. Rashell began her career as a cadet for a local newspaper and held senior positions at News Corp for over 10 years, including the first social media editor for NewsLocal and leading social media for news.com.au.
Saffron Howden is a leader in journalism, innovation and media literacy. A passionate advocate for regional journalism, over the course of more than 20 years she has worked at the Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Telegraph, AAP and now ACM. She was Google News Initiative's first teaching fellow for Australia and New Zealand and founded national children’s newspaper Crinkling News. She co-authored Kid Reporter: The Secret to Breaking News and has mentored dozens of young reporters through their first years in journalism as an editorial trainer. Saffron is now ACM’s national affairs correspondent and AI lead as well as a PhD candidate investigating media literacy and misinformation.
Gabrielle Jackson has been an editor at Guardian Australia since 2014. She is currently associate editor, audio and visual and was an associate editor for news and opinion editor before that. She is the author of Pain and Prejudice: How the Medical System Ignores Women and What We Can Do About It, which has been published in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland, United States and Canada. She won the 2016 National Medicinewise Award for her reporting on endometriosis. She started her career at the Village Voice in New York and has lived in the US, UK and Spain.
Julie Lewis is the features editor of The Sydney Morning Herald across print and digital platforms. She has held a variety of senior editorial roles, including five years as the Herald’s opinion editor. She began her career as a cadet at the Herald and has worked as a journalist in Melbourne, Moscow and Washington DC. She is the co-editor of Pardon Me for Mentioning a book of previously unpublished letters to the editor of the Herald.
Claire is News Editor of the ABC's South Australia newsroom, leading a news team with a proud record of breaking high impact investigative stories. Claire has been in News and Technology leadership positions for the past 10 years leading and developing the ABC’s multiplatform teams across the country. Claire began her ABC career as a News cadet journalist in the Sydney newsroom in 1998. She has worked as a journalist, producer and presenter reporting on a wide range of stories all the way from India to remote NT communities. Claire has worked for the ABC in NSW, QLD, the NT and SA. Claire grew up in country NSW and began her media career in regional television.
Konrad Marshall is a senior writer with Good Weekend magazine, based in Melbourne and specialising in longform stories about sport, the arts and science. He also hosts its weekly podcast, Good Weekend Talks. Before joining the magazine, he was a features writer for The Age, and deputy editor of The Melbourne Magazine. That followed almost a decade working for various US newspapers in New York, Florida and Indiana. He is the author of several books, most notably Yellow & Black: A Season with Richmond, and has worked with numerous athletes to help tell their stories, including iconic Australian tennis star Ash Barty (My Dream Time) and former AFL player and coach now transgender advocate Danielle Laidley (Don’t Look Away). Konrad has twice been named as Best Print Journalist by the Australian Sports Commission, and is the only two time winner of the Harry Gordon Award for Australian Sports Journalist of the Year.
Greg Muller is Executive Producer of Audio Documentaries at LiSTNR, recently completing the Should I Spit podcast. He was EP of Take Me To Your Leader for the ABC, Dark Shining Moment about Russian disinformation techniques and The Age’s investigative podcast, Wrong Skin which won a Quill, two Australian Podcast Awards and a Gold NYF Radio award. Greg wrote and hosted Motherlode, an investigative podcast on the creation of Wikileaks (currently in production for TV) and Gertie's Law, a groundbreaking series from Victoria’s Supreme Court which won a Gold NYF Radio award. Prior to podcasting, he worked for The Project, ABC’s 7.30, and as a presenter/producer for Bush Telegraph and SBS radio. Greg has also worked as a sound engineer and river guide.
After leaving a career as a graphic designer in 2003, Jake Nowakowski found himself freelancing both at home and abroad before eventually accepting staff positions at the North West Star in Mount Isa and The Cairns Post. He is currently employed as a staff photographer at the Herald Sun in Melbourne, and won the 2023 Nikon-Walkley Press Photographer of the Year award.
Melanie Petrinec is deputy editor of The Courier-Mail and Sunday Mail in Queensland. She began her career at The Rockhampton Morning Bulletin in 2005, before stints in Gladstone, Emerald, Cairns and the Gold Coast before joining The Courier-Mail as chief court reporter in 2015.
Mark Riley has been the Seven Network’s Political Editor since 2004, appearing on Seven News, Sunrise and Weekend Sunrise. He also writes a weekly column on politics for The West Australian newspaper. Before joining Seven, Mark was a Chief Political Correspondent and New York Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald. He led the masthead’s coverage of the September 11 attacks. Mark began his journalistic career with the Newcastle Herald as a cadet in 1979. He has won Walkeys for foreign reporting and best columnist and was the first television journalist to win the National Press Club’s Paul Lyneham Award for Press Gallery Excellence.
Paul Williams has earned a formidable reputation during his fifty plus years as an Australian broadcast journalist for the ABC, SBS and commercial television. Paul is Executive Producer of SBS’s WorldWatch service which broadcasts 62 international news programs a day in 42 languages, including 20 services in English, across three TV networks and SBS On Demand.
Appointed Head of News and Current Affairs for the ABC in 1995, Paul co-located ABC Radio and TV newsrooms, nationalised the 7.30 Report and created Australian Story. Paul began his professional career with ABC Radio as a rural journalist, moving to television as a documentary producer for A Big Country, Jack Absalom’s Outback and Heartlands with Dr. Dean Graetz.
He became Executive Producer of Lateline, Four Corners, the Gold Walkley Award-winning series on the Hawke Keating government, Labor in Power and SBS’s Insight program. Paul also helped establish Page One and Public Eye for the Ten Network.
Appointed Head of News and Current Affairs for the ABC in 1995, Paul co-located ABC Radio and TV newsrooms, nationalised the 7.30 Report and created Australian Story. Paul began his professional career with ABC Radio as a rural journalist, moving to television as a documentary producer for A Big Country, Jack Absalom’s Outback and Heartlands with Dr. Dean Graetz.
He became Executive Producer of Lateline, Four Corners, the Gold Walkley Award-winning series on the Hawke Keating government, Labor in Power and SBS’s Insight program. Paul also helped establish Page One and Public Eye for the Ten Network.