05-finalists
Sir Keith Murdoch Award Journalism
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Hedley Thomas of The Courier-Mail who led the coverage of Queensland’s "Dr Death", the rogue surgeon Jayant Patel, and revealed he had been struck off the medical register in the US for gross negligence. (Winner)
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Cameron Stewart of The Australian for a range of big investigative pieces, including the Chinese spy story, the real story of convicted terrorist Jack Roche and the rise and fall of Mark Latham.
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Ricky Sutton, Lillian Saleh, Samantha Williams, Stavro Sofios, Simon Benson and Justin Vallejo of The Daily Telegraph, whose campaign to expose the shocking death rate among P-plate drivers forced the NSW Government to introduce sweeping reforms.
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Shortlisted:
Nick Butterly, Group
Tony Wilson, The Gold Coast Bulletin
Jeremy Roberts and Michelle Wiese-Bockmann, The Australian
Tony Koch, The Australian
Ean Higgins and Brad Norington, The Australian
John Flint, The Sunday Times
Newspaper of the year
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Shortlisted:
The Gold Coast Bulletin
The Hornsby Advocate
The Sunday Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
Young Journalists of the Year
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Liam Houlihan, Herald Sun, spent three days living on the streets of Melbourne to investigate the issue of begging, in the course of which he was charged by police under the Vagrancy Act. He also made the link between a name on the guest list for the Danish royal wedding and a man charged with serial rapes, breaking the story of the court case involving Princess Mary’s cousin. (Winner)
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Fiona Hamilton, The Gold Coast Bulletin, for her stories of the miraculous escapes and heroism of young Gold Coast people caught up in the tsunami, and for her series of Page 1 stories on a sexual harassment case at the town hall.
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Gemma Jones, The Daily Telegraph, for a body of work including an extraordinary story from inside the intensive-care unit at a Sydney hospital where an elderly man was dying after a court ordered his life support turned off.
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Shortlisted:
Stephen Johnson, Sunday Territorian
Elizabeth Colman, The Australian
Viva Goldner, The Daily Telegraph
Kellie Cameron, Brimbank Leader
Linda Smith, The Mercury
Features Journalist of the Year
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Mike Safe, The Weekend Australian Magazine, for a range of work that included "Left to Grieve", about the trauma felt by the families of hit-and-run victims, and "Analysis of a Murder", the reconstruction of the execution-style killing of a psychiatrist. (Winner)
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Hedley Thomas, The Courier-Mail, for his coverage of health issues, including the systemic failures of the Queensland hospital system as well as for his investigation of an inter-country child abduction which led to the return of the boy to his mother.
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Sian Powell, The Australian, whose portfolio focused on the turbulence of the past year in Indonesia, ranging from the tsunami to the soap opera surrounding the trial of Schapelle Corby.
Specialist Writer of the Year
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Matt Price, The Australian. Matt’s The Sketch column, written from his Canberra base, is an often whimsical, occasionally serious, look at politics which nevertheless still manages to break stories. (Winner)
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Keith Moor, Herald Sun, specialises in crime reporting and led the coverage of a Victoria Police superintendent charged with sex offences in Sierra Leone, finding the alleged victim and persuading her family to allow her to talk. His investigation into the alleged Mafia links of the late Al Grassby exposed a web of connections built up over 40 years.
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Sian Powell, The Australian’s, Jakarta correspondent, drew on her expert knowledge of Indonesia for a series of stories including the bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta and the rebellion in Aceh.
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Shortlisted:
Leigh Dayton, The Australian
Mark Buttler, Herald Sun
Martin Chulov, The Australian
Paul Anderson, Herald Sun
Zoe Taylor, The Daily Telegraph
Tony Koch, The Australian
Nui Te Koha, Herald Sun
Kimina Lyall, The Australian
Business Journalist of the Year
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Marshall Hall, The Gold Coast Bulletin, who has extended the newspaper’s coverage of business and finance, consistently pushing it on to Page 1 and into other sections of the newspaper. (Winner)
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Michael Sainsbury, The Australian’s, communications writer, who led the national coverage of Telstra, consistently revealing the inside stories including how closely Telstra's business was entwined with its political ownership.
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Richard Gluyas, The Australian, whose scoop "NAB cuts 4000 jobs in global shake-up" was published the day before the bank’ interim profit was announced. His remarkably frank interview with Foster’s CEO Trevor O’Hoy provoked an extraordinary response from readers and other CEOs.
Sports Journalist of the Year
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Mike Sheahan, Herald Sun, whose annual review of the AFL’s top players took two months of research and helped maintain the paper’s reputation for outstanding coverage of the game. He also revealed the rift between AFL officials and the Sydney Swans that threatened to compromise the growth of the game. (Winner)
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James Hooper, The Daily Telegraph, for a series of articles including consecutive splashes when he found the teenaged rugby league player suspended for 30 years for assaulting a referee and then got the referee to talk the following day.
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Mark Stevens, Herald Sun, who set the agenda on the Brownlow medal coverage with a series of reports that provoked enormous outcry as the AFL set about revamping the eligibility criteria for the event. He also arranged the reunion of a player and an umpire involved in a controversial incident 20 years ago.
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Trevor Grant, Herald Sun, who exposed the parlous state of the administration of tennis, in particular the failure to address issues of player development. At the height of the controversy, the CEO of Tennis Australia stepped down.
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Shortlisted:
Dean Ritchie, The Daily Telegraph
Jesper Fjeldstad, Sunday Mail
Greg Denham, The Australian
Peter Jenkins, The Daily Telegraph
Paul Kent, The Daily Telegraph
Sub-editor of the Year
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Ian Gunn, The Australian, who headlined the story of the farcical attempts by two Greek athletes to avoid a drugs test before finally withdrawing from the Olympics with "Greek heroes exit stage, wearing scandals." (Winner)
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Jed Rainbow, The Daily Telegraph, who nailed his newspaper’s report that women do 70 per cent of the housework with the headline "Men: all in a day’s shirk."
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Kit Galer, Herald Sun, whose headline on an opinion piece about the latest TV ratings leapt out of the page. "Seven ate Nine, Ten" underscored the channel’s success with Desperate Housewives.
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Shortlisted:
Seumas Phelan, The Australian
David Bradbury, The Advertiser
Robert Kelly, Messenger Newspapers
David McMahon, mX
Gary McGregor, mX
Tim Gill, The Daily Telegraph
David Lacey, The Sunday Telegraph
Alistair Paton, The Daily Telegraph
Lisa Sinclair, The Daily Telegraph
Editorial Innovation of the Year
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Michael Carroll, Townsville Bulletin, for TXT the Editor, an initiative that has made text messaging the primary form of contact between his paper and its community. (Winner)
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Michael Brown, Steve Berry, Melita Mileson, Colin Wright, Nick LaGalle, Alan Sanders, Herald Sun. This editorial technology team developed software to automate the construction of jockey-colours grids on the racing pages.
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Michael Owen, The Advertiser, who developed The Advertiser Watch, a reader feedback tool to identify local problems, discover who is responsible and then monitor progress until a solution is found.
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Shortlisted:
Noel Mengel, Ritchie Yorke, Gary Smart, Sara McElroy, The Courier-Mail
Rod Savage, The Advertiser
Andrew Meath, Geelong Advertiser
Sean Dutton, The Gold Coast Bulletin
Michael Jacobson, The Gold Coast Bulletin
Michael Yianni, The Fiji Times
Neil Cadigan, News Magazines
Photographer of the Year
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David Caird, Herald Sun, set up the memorable photo of Treasurer Peter Costello under a pile of newborn babies to illustrate Victoria’s baby boom. He also shot Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins stumbling down a flight of steps near the Yarra, just days after the G-string incident at a fashion show. (Winner)
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Jeff Darmanin, The Daily Telegraph, whose work included shots of humpback whales breaching which galvanised readers to protest about Japanese plans to re-introduce commercial whaling, and of the wedding of Bec Cartwright and Lleyton Hewitt taken from a helicopter above the Opera House.
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Renee Nowytarger The Australian, for her heart-rending images from Aceh after the tsunami, shots of three country children at the funeral of their parents and brother and a warts-and-all portrait of the actor Max Cullen.
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Rob Maccoll, The Courier-Mail, snapped tattooed, barely clothed British marines working on their tans between patrols in Iraq and captured the strain of doctors performing surgery without anaesthetic after the tsunami in Thailand.
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Shortlisted:
Gary Ramage, The Daily Telegraph
John Feder, Group
Darren England, The Courier-Mail
Craig Borrow, Herald Sun
Martin Lange,The Manly Daily
Stephen Cooper, The Daily Telegraph
James Croucher, The Australian
Mike Keating, Herald Sun
Brett Costello, The Daily Telegraph
Artist of the Year
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Eric Lobbecke, Nationwide News, for a wide portfolio from a boiler-suited Peter Costello clocking on for the front page of The Daily Telegraph’s budget special to the fossilised skeleton of a Sea King helicopter. (Winner)
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Paul Newman, Nationwide News, whose illustration of the Prime Minister with a mullet hair cut and wearing ugh boots and a flannelette shirt got a strong reaction from readers when it ran in The Daily Telegraph.
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Peter Nicholson, The Australian, who submitted a 60-second animation for the newspaper’s website along with his cartoons for the leader page and the Media section as well as illustrations and pocket cartoons.
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Shortlisted:
Mark Knight, Herald Sun
Simon Schneider, Herald Sun
Tim Hannaford, The Gold Coast Bulletin
John Tiedemann, Nationwide News
Scott Bailey, The Daily Telegraph
Michael Perkins, Nationwide News
Designer of the Year
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Jos Valdman, The Daily Telegraph, who retouched a photograph of Sydney Harbour to create an amazing image of what might happen if a tsunami were to hit Sydney. (Winner)
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Simon Mellick, News Limited Community Newspapers, for his work re-designing dozens of News Ltd community newspapers in Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, introducing a more modern look with new fonts, bigger pictures and higher story counts.
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Will Pearce, The Daily Telegraph, whose entry included a series of complex graphics to illustrate the newspaper’s Classmate pages and the How Did That Happen partwork.
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Shortlisted:
Darren Gover, Alpha
Aaron Coshaw, The Cairns Post
Ivan Chow, The Weekend Australian Magazine
David Matthews, The Daily Telegraph
Andrew Bunting, The Australian
Tracy Lines, Inside Outs
Jason Bitneris, The Australian
Online Journalist of the Year
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Claire Gould, Jenny Dillon, Drew Gibson, Stephen Birch, The Daily Telegraph’s on-line team. The team used the newspaper’s site to launch the only Tsunami Information Exchange in Australia to collate information from readers and official sources on the missing and the dead, and broke the story of the resignation of Bob Carr more than an hour before his announcement. While there was a good standard of entries in this category, the exceptional quality of this entry means that it is the only finalist. (Winner)
- June 25News Awards open to entries
- July 28 to August 4Deadlines for entries
- Week-ending September 10Semi-finalists announced
- Week-ending October 8Finalists announced
- October 29News Awards ceremony. Winners announced
