Guardian Australia has won two Walkley awards for excellence in journalism for political editor Katharine Murphy’s commentary and reporter Naaman Zhou’s series on the dangers faced by food delivery drivers.
Murphy took out the commentary, analysis, opinion and critique category for three of her columns on the gendered dynamics in federal parliament.
In her article on former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins finding her voice after an alleged rape in Parliament House, Murphy argued the revelations about the incident needed to spark a moment of profound change.
“This story, the gut-wrenching story of Higgins and the grotesque indignity she believes she suffered on a couch in the people’s house late at night – coming after a succession of stories about women struggling in a professional culture that remains institutionally hostile to women – has opened a wound in the building I’ve worked in for more than two decades,” Murphy wrote.
“Women who work in politics to serve their country have had enough.”
In early March, Murphy argued that the men in the halls of parliament were missing the moment – just as they had when Julia Gillard delivered her famous misogyny speech in 2012.
Later that same month, in the wake of an interview with Scott Morrison on A Current Affair, she described how the prime minister was attempting to appeal to a particular cohort of women.
“Perhaps for the foreseeable future Morrison’s prime ministership will now have two objectives: speaking to men who might vote Labor, and women inclined to pity unreconstructed men. Perhaps there was always some crossover with these two cohorts,” Murphy wrote.
Samantha Maiden, the political editor of news.com.au, won the Gold Walkley for revealing allegations that Higgins had been raped in Parliament House.
Reporter Naaman Zhou, who left Guardian Australia in 2021 to work at the New Yorker, won the all-media public service journalism Walkley for a series of reports on the dangers faced by food delivery drivers.
In a feature in early November 2020, Zhou profiled three food delivery drivers who died while delivering meals for DoorDash, Hungry Panda and Uber Eats. In one case, the driver Chow Khai Shien’s death did not officially register in Australia for two and a half days.
His follow-up news story in late November revealed that food delivery companies did not check whether their delivery riders had working bikes – or whether they could even ride a bike – before approving them to work.
Zhou continued his coverage of the issue with a story in May last year, exposing the alarmingly low rates of pay Uber Eats riders in Australia were earning for long deliveries across multiple suburbs.
Guardian Australia was a finalist in three other categories: Indigenous affairs, innovation and press photography.
Reporter Matilda Boseley was nominated in the innovation category for her vibrant and informative TikTok news videos, including her viral explainer on Afghanistan. The category was won by Kylie Boltin, Ella Rubeli, Ravi Vasavan and Emma Anderson, from SBS for Ravi and Emma, an “interactive documentary” in Southern Dialect Auslan.
Laura Murphy-Oates, Lorena Allam, David Maurice Smith and Jeremy Worrall were nominated in the Indigenous affairs category for Childhood in Custody, a series about the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the justice system. That category was won by Karla Grant, Julie Nimmo, Michael Carey, Mark Bannerman and the team from NITV’s Living Black program.
Guardian contributor Christopher Hopkins was named a finalist in the press photographer of the year category, which was won by Alex Coppel of News Corp. Best news photo went to Brook Mitchell of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Entries for this year’s Walkleys needed to have been published between 1 September 2020 and 31 August 2021.
The 66th annual Walkley awards were held in Sydney on Friday night, after being moved from Tamworth due to Covid-19 concerns.
The chair of the Walkley Judging Board, Michael Brissenden, said: “The judges had a difficult job picking winners among so many high quality entries across the 30 award categories that covered an incredibly broad range of subjects; from Covid-19 to the war in Afghanistan, mental health, underprivileged Australians, sexual harassment, racism and the Tokyo Olympics.”
“The winning entries showcase the pinnacle of Australian journalism, long-form writing and photojournalism.”
