SBS journalist Laura Murphy-Oates was named the 2018 Young Australia Young Journalist of the Year at The Walkley Foundation’s Mid-Year Awards.
The function was held last night at The Beresford in Sydney.
There were 13 awards handed out throughout the evening including Jacoby-Walkley Scholarship, the Arts Journalism Awards and the Women’s Leadership in Media, Freelancer of the Year and Industrial Reporting Awards.
Along with the 2018 Young Australia Young Journalist of the Year award, Murphy-Oates also won the Longform Feature or Special and Public Service Journalism categories for her story, “Kids of Kalgoorlie” and “Vanished: Canada’s missing women”. She has won a two-week trip to US newsrooms such as BuzzFeed, The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, Twitter and Quartz.
The Walkley Advisory Board – represented by Sky News Australia’s Angelos Frangopoulos, Guardian Australia’s Lenore Taylor, BuzzFeed Australia’s Simon Crerar and The Sunday Telegraph’s Claire Harvey – said in a statement: “Laura’s body of work was outstanding. We couldn’t look away. The fact that she was a winner in two categories also speaks to the high quality of her work, the depth of her reporting, her ability to draw insights from interviewees, and her skill in crafting a narrative that engaged viewers.”
WALKLEY YOUNG AUSTRALIAN JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
• Laura Murphy-Oates, The Feed, SBS Viceland and Dateline, SBS TV, “Young and black”, “Kids of Kalgoorlie”, “Vanished: Canada’s missing women”
SHORTFORM JOURNALISM
• Cassie Zervos, Herald Sun, “Investigation into illegal solariums”
LONGFORM FEATURE OR SPECIAL
• Laura Murphy-Oates, The Feed, SBS Viceland, “Kids of Kalgoorlie”
COVERAGE OF COMMUNITY AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS
• Samara Gardner, WIN News Illawarra and WIN News Canberra, “The Tathra inferno”
VISUAL STORYTELLING
• Emily Verdouw, The Feed, SBS Viceland, “Dangerous games?”
PUBLIC SERVICE JOURNALISM
• Laura Murphy-Oates, The Feed, SBS Viceland and Dateline, SBS TV, “Young and black”, “Kids of Kalgoorlie”, “Vanished: Canada’s missing women”
STUDENT JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
• Christiane Barro, Monash University and The New Daily, “The cannabis oil ‘healers’ preying on Australia’s sick and dying”, “Contaminants detected in unlicensed cannabis oil products”, “‘It’s a disgrace’: Senator requests complete overhaul of medicinal cannabis regulator”
HELEN O’FLYNN & ALAN KNIGHT AWARD FOR BEST INDUSTRIAL REPORTING
• Emma Field and Vanessa Marsh, The Weekly TImes, The Courier-Mail, Townsville Bulletin, Bundaberg NewsMail and The Rural Weekly, “Pacific worker program death count”
WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP IN MEDIA AWARD
• Jane Caro, The Saturday Paper, ABC News online and University of Queensland Press, “Women’s Entrappings of High Office”, “Women over 50 are living out two fates that show feminism is an incomplete project”, “Unbreakable: Women share stories of resilience and hope”
FREELANCE JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
• Karishma Vyas, Al Jazeera English, “Bride and brothels: The Rohingya Trade”, “Afghanistan: Asylum denied”, “Forced back to cambodia”
ARTS JOURNALISM AWARD
• Gabriella Coslovich, Melbourne University Press, “Whiteley on Trial”
WALKLEY-PASCALL AWARD FOR ARTS CRITICISM
• Delia Falconer, The Sydney Review of Books, “The opposite of glamour”
JACOBY-WALKLEY SCHOLARSHIP
• Benjamin Ansell, The University of Melbourne
• Amber Schultz, Monash University