ABC takes nine Walkleys
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Two journalists from the Nine Network's axed Sunday program, Ross Coulthart and Nick Farrow, won the 2008 Gold Walkley.
The ABC picked up nine Walkley Awards for journalism at a ceremony in Melbourne last night.
The broadcaster made it a clean sweep in the radio category, with awards for news, current affairs and feature reports.
The ABC's China correspondent, Stephen McDonell, won two Walkleys for his coverage of the region.
He says his stories about the May earthquake in the Sichuan province depended on the courage of the Chinese people.
"We really only were able to tell the stories we could tell because local Chinese people were happy to talk to us," he said.
"They wanted the world to know about what a shocking disaster this was, and the fact that they were open in speaking to us really enabled us to get their stories to the rest of the world."
Two journalists from the Nine Network's axed Sunday program won the Gold Walkley - the most prized award in Australian journalism.
Ross Coulthart and Nick Farrow shared the Gold for their investigation of a doctor's alleged malpractice and incompetence in the New South Wales south coast town of Bega, which led to charges of sexual assault and mutilation against him.
"Ross Coulthart and Nick Farrow of the Nine Network's Sunday program acted on a tip and, after weeks of painstaking investigation, found dozens of victims in a series of powerful exposes that forced a reform of NSW medical regulations surrounding the monitoring and reporting of incompetent doctors," a statement from Walkley organisers said.
The honour follows the axing of Sunday earlier this year, after 27 years on air.
The award for the Young Australian Journalist of the Year went to Sophie McNeill, who works for SBS television's Dateline program.
The Australian newspaper's Tony Koch and Padraic Murphy were awarded for their story about a group of men who escaped a jail term after pleading guilty to raping a 10-year-old girl at Aurukun in north Queensland.
News Limited chief executive John Hartigan won the Walkley award for journalistic leadership.
Reuters photographer David Gray's pictures following China's May earthquake and during the Beijing Olympics helped him secure the Australian press photographer of the year award.
Fairfax journalist Pamela Bone was honoured posthumously with the award for most outstanding contribution to journalism for her support of humanitarian causes and advancing female leaders in the media.
A journalist with The Age, Bone died in April this year of cancer. She was 68.
Don Watson, a speech writer for former prime minister Paul Keating, won the Walkley for best non-fiction book for American Journeys.
- ABC/AAP
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