The mid-year Walkleys pay tribute to the work of young journalists in Australia, and last night
The Feed took out several prizes.
Ella Archibald-Binge was awarded the longform feature prize for her piece on Australia’s stolen wages scheme, the Queensland government's racist law that was in operation until the 1970s, and withheld the wages of Aboriginal workers.
The stolen wages are estimated to be up to $500 million, and last year after a class action, the Queensland government settled to pay $190 million to workers and their families.
Marty Smiley, Jack Tullerners and Pat Forrest won the Best Visual Storytelling award for their feature on the Christian Democratic Party. It explored the tension within the party when young 18-year-old Samraat Joshua Grewal, president of the Christian Youth faction, set about shaking-up the institution and taking on the then 84yr old leader, Rev Fred Nile.
It included innovative visualisations of party meetings, and brought the little explored story of young political entrants to the fore.
The mid-year awards have a youth focus, and Walkleys Chief Executive Louise Graham says the ceremony was introduced to “recognise the work of young journalists and specialist writers not included in the Walkley Awards.”
“They are not Walkley Awards, they have a different trophy, but they are determined through the same rigorous processes and according to the same standards of excellence and expert judging,” she said.
This year, the mid-year Walkley’s introduced a new prize, the Media Diversity award. It was won by Mahmood Fazal and The Feed’s Rebecca Metcalf for their Audible Original ‘No Gangsters In Paradise’.
