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**UPDATE: Due to the surge of Omicron cases and uncertainty around travel in the coming weeks, in consultation with the NSW Government and Tamworth Regional Council we will be postponing and shifting the Walkley Awards to Sydney. The 66th Walkley Awards Gala Dinner will be held in Sydney on Friday, February 25, 2022.**

The Walkley Foundation is delighted to announce the finalists for the 66th annual Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism.

The Walkley Awards, Australia’s pre-eminent national journalism awards, recognise and reward the best in the craft and set the industry standard for excellence.

Announcing the finalists, then chief executive of the Walkley Foundation, Louisa Graham, said: “Our warm congratulations to this impressive array of finalists, who have set the standard for best-practice, ethical journalism in Australia in another disrupted year. This is work that makes a difference, that creates change, holds the powerful to account and holds a mirror up to our nation and its culture. It will be a longer wait than usual to announce our winners, but we want to have the best chance at celebrating together as an industry, so we are looking forward to gathering in February 2022.”

Finalists are selected by panels of peers on the basis of overall merit and journalistic excellence. The Walkley Foundation encourages a diversity of entries from journalists around Australia. This year we received 1280 entries.

Judges for this first round are selected by the Walkley Judging Board. You can find information about the Walkley Awards judging process here, and the Terms and Conditions of the Awards here.   

The Walkley Foundation has a mechanism for dealing with any conflict of interest, actual or perceived, that may arise during the judging process. The guidelines are based on the principle that all actual conflicts of interest are to be avoided and that even a perceived conflict may be damaging to all parties. You can read more about the conflict of interest guidelines here.

Thanks to the generous support of the NSW Government all Walkley Award winners will be announced at a gala dinner in Sydney on Friday February 25.

A full list of this year’s finalists and judges follows.

Beneath that is a list of the winners of the Nikon Photography Prizes.

For media enquiries contact Clare Fletcher on clare.fletcher@walkleys.com or 0432 616 810.

66th Walkley Award finalists

PRINT/TEXT NEWS REPORT
Award Partner Media Super

PUBLIC SERVICE JOURNALISM
Award Partner Sydney Airport

INNOVATION
Award Partner Google News Initiative

  • Kylie Boltin, Ella Rubeli, Ravi Vasavan and Emma Anderson, SBS, “Ravi and Emma
  • Matilda Boseley, Guardian Australia, “Guardian Australia TikTok
  • Emma Morris, Samuel Tate, Genelle Weule, Nathan Bazley and the Mt Resilience Team, ABC, “Mt Resilience

HEADLINE, CAPTION OR HOOK

FEATURE WRITING LONG (OVER 4000 WORDS)
Award Partner Facebook

FEATURE WRITING SHORT (UNDER 4000 WORDS)
Award Partner The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age

COVERAGE OF INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS
Award Partner PwC Indigenous Consulting

COVERAGE OF COMMUNITY OR REGIONAL AFFAIRS
Award Partner BHP

CARTOON
Award Partner Epson

  • Jon Kudelka, The Saturday Paper, “Duty of Care
  • David Pope, The Canberra Times, “Rollout de Vax”
  • David Rowe, The Australian Financial Review, “Spineless”

SPORTS JOURNALISM

SPORT PHOTOGRAPHY

  • Alex Coppel, Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier-Mail and The Advertiser, “The Games that Had to Happen”
  • Michael Dodge, Tennis Australia and Instagram, “Unguarded Moments”
  • Jason Edwards, Herald Sun and The Australian, “The Crux”

RADIO/AUDIO NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS
Award Partner ABC

RADIO/AUDIO FEATURE

  • Camille Bianchi and Marc Wright, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast.com, “The Nurse
  • Angus Grigg and Lap Phan, The Australian Financial Review, “The Sure Thing
  • Alex Mann, Kevin Nguyen and the Background Briefing team, Background Briefing, ABC Radio National, “The Base Tapes

PRODUCTION

SCOOP OF THE YEAR
Award Partner Nine News

  • Samantha Maiden, news.com.au, “Open Secret: The Brittany Higgins story
  • Michael Warner, Herald Sun, “‘Do Better’: The Secret Collingwood Racism Report
  • Ellen Whinnett, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, The Advertiser and The Courier-Mail, “The AN0M Files”

COVERAGE OF A MAJOR NEWS EVENT OR ISSUE
Award Partner Sky News Australia 

  • Samantha Maiden and the news.com.au team, news.com.au, “Open Secret: The Brittany Higgins story”
  • Louise Milligan and the Four Corners Team, Four Corners, ABC, “The Canberra Bubble”
  • Laura Tingle and James Elton, 7.30, ABC, “Women, politics and accountability”

NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY

  • Kate Geraghty, The Sydney Morning Herald, “COVID-19 ICU”
  • Justin McManus, The Age, “Anti-Lockdown Protest”
  • Brook Mitchell, The Sydney Morning Herald, “Sydney Anti-Lockdown Protest”

BUSINESS JOURNALISM
Award Partner ING

FEATURE/PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY
Award Partner Canva

  • Scott Barbour, ausopen.com, “2021 Australian Open”
  • Jake Nowakowski, Herald Sun and The Weekend Australian Magazine, “Superheroes in Lockdown”
  • Dean Sewell, The Sun-Herald, “Of Mice and Men”

TELEVISION/VIDEO: CAMERAWORK

TELEVISION/VIDEO NEWS REPORTING
Award Partner Seven

  • Amelia Adams, Today and Nine News 6pm, Nine, “Capitol Attack
  • Tim Arvier, Nine News 6pm and Today, Nine, “Ambulance Delays
  • Withdrawn – Peter Fegan and Rebeka Powell, Nine News 6pm, Nine, “The Investigation of Andrew Laming”

TELEVISION/VIDEO CURRENT AFFAIRS SHORT (LESS THAN 20 MINUTES)
Award Partner SBS

TELEVISION/VIDEO CURRENT AFFAIRS LONG (MORE THAN 20 MINUTES)
Award Partner TEN News First and The Project

  • Sarah Ferguson, Tony Jones, Patricia Drum and Lauren Day, Four Corners, ABC, “Fox and the Big Lie
  • Nick McKenzie and Joel Tozer, 60 Minutes, Nine, “Nazis Next Door
  • Lisa Wilkinson, Angus Llewellyn and Darryl Brown, The Project, Network Ten, “Brittany Higgins

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
Award Partner AGL

COMMENTARY, ANALYSIS, OPINION AND CRITIQUE

WALKLEY DOCUMENTARY AWARD SHORTLIST
Award Partner NSW Government 

WALKLEY BOOK AWARD SHORTLIST

Richard Flanagan, Toxic: The Rotting Underbelly of the Tasmanian Salmon Industry, Penguin
Kate Holden, The Winter Road, Black Inc.
Stuart Rintoul, Lowitja: The authorised biography of Lowitja O’Donoghue, Allen & Unwin

See the longlist here.

NIKON-WALKLEY PRESS PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 

Award Partner Nikon

  • Alex Coppel, Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph and The Courier-Mail 
  • Jason Edwards, Herald Sun
  • Christopher Hopkins, The Age, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald and Al Jazeera

2021 NIKON PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE WINNERS

These are not Walkley Awards, but prizes administered by the Walkley Foundation on behalf of Nikon. These photos will also appear in the Nikon-Walkley Press Photography exhibition.

NIKON PHOTO OF THE YEAR 

  • WINNER: Kate Geraghty, The Sydney Morning Herald, “Fighting COVID-19 Delta”

NIKON  PORTRAIT PRIZE

  • WINNER: Brian Cassey, The Australian, “The Yarrick Family of Kunhanhaa”

See all the photography prize-winners and finalists’ hero images in our post here.

 

Thank you to the many senior journalists who gave their time to judge the Walkley Awards this year:

  • Sarah Abo, 60 Minutes, Nine
  • Mark Baker, AP
  • Nick Batzias, Good Thing Productions
  • Alice Brennan, Background Briefing, ABC
  • Bridget Brennan, ABC
  • Una Butorac, The Feed, SBS
  • David Chau, ABC
  • Tom Clift, Crikey
  • Julie Coe, ACM
  • Rhanna Collins, NITV
  • Fiona Connolly, Woman’s Day
  • Mark Corcoran, ex-ABC
  • Angela Cox, Seven
  • Danielle Cronin, ABC News Digital
  • Sarah Curnow, ABC Investigations
  • Mark Davies, ABC
  • Mary Davison, Nine
  • Suzanne Dredge, 7.30, ABC
  • Andrew Drummond, AAP
  • Tom Dusevic, The Australian
  • Anton Emdin, illustrator
  • Anton Enus, SBS
  • Kieran Gilbert, Sky News
  • Peter Gleeson, Sky News 
  • Ricardo Goncalves, SBS World News
  • Phil Goyen, Seven
  • Michelle Griffin, The Age
  • Rashell Habib, Ten
  • Madeline Hayman-Reber, freelance
  • Phil Hemingway, ABC WA
  • Anna Henderson, SBS
  • Amanda Hoh, ABC 
  • Judy Horacek, cartoonist
  • Antoun Issa, Guardian Australia
  • Bridie Jabour, Guardian Australia
  • Sandra Jackson, The West Australian
  • Anita Jacoby, media executive and award-winning producer
  • Alex Johnston, WIN News Tasmania
  • Rae Johnston, NITV
  • Chris Jones, The Courier-Mail
  • David King, The Age
  • Kylie Lang, The Courier-Mail
  • Angus Llewellyn, The Project, Ten
  • Mark Llewellyn, Seven
  • Joanna Mather, The Australian Financial Review
  • Grant McArthur, Herald Sun
  • Barbara McGrady, photographer
  • Heidi Murphy, 3AW 
  • Oliver Murray, news.com.au
  • Sean Nicholls, Four Corners, ABC
  • Renee Nowytarger, photographer
  • Gareth Parker, 6PR 
  • Luke Pearson, Indigenous X
  • Steve Pennells, freelance investigative journalist
  • Jodan Perry, NITV
  • Jo Puccini, ABC
  • Nick Ralston, The Sydney Morning Herald
  • Hugh Riminton, Ten
  • Billy Rule, The West Australian 
  • Stefanie Sgroi, 60 Minutes, Nine
  • Ben Smee, Guardian Australia
  • Annika Smethurst, The Age
  • Mike Smithson, Seven SA
  • Danie Sprague, The Age
  • Tom Steinfort, 60 Minutes, Nine
  • Michelle Stephenson, Nova 96.9 Newsroom
  • Lia Timson, The Age
  • Brian Thomson, SBS
  • Sarah Thornton, The Project, Ten
  • Helen Trinca, The Australian
  • Michael Usher, Seven 
  • Tracy Vo, Nine
  • Liz Walsh, The Advertiser
  • Raj Wakeling, The Project, Ten
  • Paul Walker, Seven
  • Chad Watson, ACM
  • Kathryn Wicks, The Sydney Morning Herald
  • Mark Willacy, ABC
  • Cameron Williams, Nine

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