The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age land 19 Kennedy Award nominations
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have been nominated for 19 Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism, including for an investigation into former Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo’s text messages and for live coverage of the Bondi Junction attack.
A record 1014 entries were received in the competition, named after the respected crime reporter Les Kennedy.
Eddie Jim’s award-winning photograph of Lotomau Fiafia and his grandson John, who are residents of Fiji’s Kioa Island, in August 2023.Credit: Eddie Jim
Nick McKenzie, Michael Bachelard and Amelia Ballinger were nominated for Scoop of the Year for their expose of Pezzullo, which revealed a cache of messages he sent to a Liberal Party powerbroker. Ballinger and McKenzie were also nominated for their accompanying 60 Minutes special, The Power Player.
McKenzie received a nod in the Outstanding Documentary category with Dora Weekly, Orly Danon and Chris Masters for the Stan special Revealed: Ben Roberts-Smith - Truth on Trial.
The Herald newsroom’s Bondi Junction coverage was nominated in the category of Outstanding Online News Breaking.
One of the Herald’s investigative reporters, Carrie Fellner, was nominated for Outstanding Documentary, along with Katrina McGowan, Janine Hosking and Mat Cornwell, for their Stan documentary How To Poison A Planet.
Bachelard and Ruby Schwartz were nominated for Outstanding Podcast for their Trial By Water series, in which scientists and lawyers raise serious doubts about Robert Farquharson’s conviction for murdering his three sons on Father’s Day, 2005.
The Visual Stories Team was nominated in the Outstanding Digital Innovation category for use of AI in coverage of soccer’s offside trap and analysis of historic federal budget speeches.
Photographer Eddie Jim scored two nods: Outstanding Portrait Photography for his coverage of Fiji residents under threat from rising seas, and Outstanding Sports Photography. Herald chief photographer Nick Moir was also a finalist in the Outstanding Sports Photography for Birdsville Rodeo.
The Herald’s Tom Decent was nominated for Outstanding Sport Reporting for his coverage of former Wallabies boss Eddie Jones, who was secretly interviewed by Japanese rugby officials to take over as the head coach days before Australia’s Rugby World Cup campaign started.
The mastheads swept the Outstanding Cartoon category. The nominees were Cathy Wilcox’s Solid Ground, Jim Pavlidis’ Mowed Down and Megan Herbert’s Not Fit for Purpose.
The Herald’s associate editor Kathryn Wicks was nominated for Outstanding Team Player or Mentor, investigations editor Michael Evans was a co-nominee for Regional Broadcast Reporting, and The Age’s veteran crime reporter John Silvester was nominated as an Outstanding Columnist for his work on Naked City.
Good Weekend magazine scored a nod for Tim Elliott’s profile of Australian medical pioneer Richard Scolyer, while Catherine Marshall was nominated for Outstanding Travel Writing for a Traveller story on gorilla tourism in Uganda.
“This has been a huge year for news and I could not be prouder of the team,” said Herald editor Bevan Shields.
The Age editor Patrick Elligett said: “Once again the journalism of The Age newsroom has proved to be among the finest in the country.”
The winners will be announced on Friday August 16.