2023 SA Media Awards winners highlight the importance of empathetic journalism
Alana Pahor, from On The Record, UniSA, reports from MEAA’S 2023 SA Media Awards.
At this year’s SA Media Awards night, award recipients shared the importance of covering confronting stories with sensitivity, honesty and empathy.
The top awards for professional journalist and student journalist, sponsored by the University of South Australia, were both taken out by individuals covering mental health trauma in rural communities.
South Australia’s 2023 Journalist of the Year, Daniel Clarke, said: “If we can tell these stories and at least make a difference to one person’s life … that’s the biggest thing we can do as journalists.”
Clarke’s explorations of grief, suicide and mental health issues in the Kangaroo Island community following bushfires were commended by judges as “clear examples of personal experiences through journalism enabling a wider community to better cope with loss and mental anguish.”
Clarke said his aim was to “prevent these types of things from happening again.”
“If we talk more openly about these things, then it’s probably less likely that people are going to feel so isolated and alone,” Clarke said.
“I think the media has a really big role to play in that. I think we’ve seen that tonight with a lot of the stories,” he said.
Jessica Dempster, who won the 2023 Julie Duncan Memorial Award for Student Journalism, is also focused on mental health in rural Australia.
Dempster’s story on the mental and physical health risks faced by long-distance truck drivers was Highly Commended in the national student journalism awards, the Ossies.
When asked what inspired her to spark public conversation about long-distance truck drivers, Dempster said “there’s a lot of people back home and in rural communities that just don’t feel like they’re being heard.”
“It’s [rewarding] bringing the voices of those people out as stories that might otherwise go unnoticed,” she said.
While sharing confronting personal stories is important in itself, perhaps more important is the way journalists interview sources who have experienced traumatic events.
“Text Formats: Feature” award winner Lauren Novak said journalists “have to remember, this is the hardest thing that somebody has gone through … and they’re willing to share it with you.”
She said her strategy was to “think about what people would want to know and what is interesting, but also think about not pressuring that person to tell you something … treat it more like a conversation than a back and forth interview.”
Judge’s commented that Novak’s award-winning story puts readers “in the room” with Arman Abrahimzadeh during his first meeting with his father since his father murdered his mother.
Judges said “it was clear that Lauren had researched her subject and, most importantly in such a story, had developed a rapport with him.”
Novak’s approach paid off; she said it was “heartening” to see how many people read Arman’s story.
“Too many families have an experience of family violence, so for them to read Arman’s story may give them some comfort and let them know that they’re not alone,” she said. “That’s the most heartening thing, that people will read it and take that story in.”
Building rapport was just as important for “Text Formats: News” award winner Riley Walter when covering the story of Charlie Nowland, a six-year-old girl who tragically died in her home last year.
“It’s a very difficult thing to build rapport with friends, neighbours and eventually family and to be able to convince them that you’ll do their story justice and that, at the end of the day, all you want to do is tell their story,” Walter said.
“Fortunately,” he said, “her [Charlie’s] mum put her trust in me to be able to tell her story. It was very, very special.”
Walter said his approach to building rapport is to “take people out for coffee, build a relationship with them; don’t go to them only when you need something.”
“Everything’s going in the way of digital now and there are deadline pressures and [publications] striving for the biggest readership you can get on a digital platform, but I think old school journalism is as important as it has ever been,” he said.
“That’s something as simple as introducing yourself to someone, offering them a coffee, just talking to them.”
The 2023 SA Media Awards judges took notice of Walter’s empathetic journalism approach, saying his article was “beautifully, sensitively written and intelligently, empathetically framed.”
“Walter gives a voice to the family impacted and doesn’t sensationalise,” they said.
Such journalistic values were apparent throughout the full group of award winners this year, as Federal President of MEAA Media and deputy chair of the Walkey Foundation, Karen Percy, said.
“Overall I have been struck by how the difficult subject matter by many winners has been handled with sensitivity, empathy and compassion,” she said.
Clarke said recognising these achievements is what makes the 2023 SA Media Awards Night so important.
“Not only should we look forward, but we’ve got to look back at what we’ve achieved,” he said.
“It’s important to acknowledge the great work that’s being done so that we can continue to do that, and … base our aims on those types of achievements and that type of reporting.”
