Spotlight on: Henry Zwartz
“Journalism isn’t just about journalists. It’s about the communities we work in,” says the 2019 Young Journo winner for Community/Regional journalism.
Winner of the Coverage of Community and Regional Affairs category at the 2019 Walkley Young Australian Journalist of the Year Awards.
Henry Zwartz, ABC News Regional, “‘This is Tasmania’s Ballarat’: Abuse survivors speak out”
Henry Zwartz won this year’s Young Australian Journalist of the Year Award for best Coverage of Community and Regional Affairs. His investigation uncovered the true extent of abuse at Marist Regional College from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The judges said: “The groundwork involved in bringing these stories to the community of Burnie spanned across the country; it was an extensive and emotional task. In the face of legal challenges and tight lipped officials, Henry was dedicated to building trust and finding the truth. He treated survivors with respect and sensitivity, his stories ultimately empowering them.”
Henry shared his thoughts with us on how he found this story, being part of people’s healing process, and why Tintin was his first literary hero.
How did you find this story?
I’d been away from Tasmania visiting my family on mainland Australia over Christmas last year. While away, a local priest — Thomas Fulcher — admitted in court to historical sex crimes while a priest at Burnie’s Marist College in the 1960s.
When I got back, a senior colleague suggested there could be more people out there who had been affected while students of Burnie’s Marist College all of those years ago. It seemed like a significant story, and so I started making discreet enquiries. I had a conversation with a former student who told me of some old friends he had lost contact with, whom he thought may have been abused while they were students.
After this meeting I had a few names, and an old 1960s yearbook.
Little did I know then this would turn into a months-long investigation, revealing a shocking betrayal of trust by those in positions of power to dozens of young girls and boys in regional Tasmania across the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
What did it take to get this story up?
The challenges in reporting and researching this story were huge. It was a case of literally tracking down people from across Australia with usually nothing more to go on than a name from a 50 year-old yearbook. But slowly, meticulously, I began finding and speaking with former students.
I would have spoken with more than 150 ex-students while researching these stories, located in every state and territory in the country. These interviews took four months of ongoing work, while juggling the responsibilities of being a solo news journalist in the ABC Burnie newsroom. My colleagues in Launceston assisted me by covering me when I needed to put time aside for these interviews.
It wasn’t simply a matter of tracking people down, but also earning their trust. Speaking about sexual abuse is incredibly difficult. But there was a genuine sense among most of the people I spoke with that by sharing their stories with someone, they were relieving themselves of a burden. For many, it was the first time they had told anyone, including even their lifelong partners or children. As a reporter, gaining that sort of trust is an incredible privilege.
There were also legal challenges in reporting on sexual abuse victims in Tasmania. The state is one of a couple of jurisdictions in Australia that have controversial laws which make it very hard to identify victims of sexual abuse, even when they want to come forward.
This meant that some who shared their story could not be shown. It was an enormous frustration not only for me as a journalist working on these stories but also the victims themselves, who felt they should have the final say in what could be made public and what should be kept from the public eye. These were both women and men who were reliving traumatic experiences they went through as children, some were as young as seven when they had been abused.
These stories take a personal toll. Any reporter who has worked on lengthy sexual abuse cases will tell you this. But it is imperative that we, as reporters, do justice to these public interest stories. With growing pressures on media, now more than ever, public broadcasting plays a role in regional communities giving voice to the voiceless.
What impact did the story have?
More than 70 people have spoken with me now revealing that they, too, were abused by different teachers and priests from religious schools in Tasmania. Their stories have contributed in shining a light on what had been a dark shadow over the community I live in for many decades.
The victims even include the local parish priest in Burnie, who bravely shared his story earlier this year. It was the first time for many to ever tell anyone they had been abused. I get letters, phone calls and texts from people telling me that after I had spoken with them they had ‘come out’ and shared their experience with a family member for the first time. It helped with their healing.
What are you most proud of about the stories you’ve told? What’s the best thing about receiving this award?
After our coverage, more than 20 former students have launched legal cases against the religious institutions they feel let them down. Those matters could take years to resolve, but for many it is the first time they have felt they have been able to have a sense of empowerment through the courts.
But for me the pivotal moment was at the awards night ceremony, having sexual abuse victims flooding my phone with congratulations and thank you messages. I dedicated the award to them because they are the brave ones in all of this.
What made you want to be a journalist?
This probably isn’t the answer you were expecting but here I go… I had terrible reading difficulties as a kid. Like six or seven years old.
I was a few years behind the other kids when it came to spelling and reading. I had a teacher who believed in me, and pulled me aside for intensive reading classes after school hours. We would read Herge’s Tintin comics.
Tintin was a roaming foreign correspondent. He was my first literary hero, and I guess it left an impression because ever since then I’ve wanted to be Tintin.
Later, as a starry-eyed university student, I was lucky enough to have a great mentor in Phil Thornton who let me work as a trainee reporter with Karen News on the Thai-Burma border for a couple of years, primarily on conflict-related issues. He has been a big influence.
What’s your message to Australians about why quality journalism needs their support?
Journalism isn’t just about journalists. It’s about the communities we work in. If it wasn’t for a funded ABC, these stories may never have been told.
Every day reporters around the world do amazing work. We don’t do it for the money, the accolades or the job security. We do it out of a sense of collective duty, a commitment to humanity.
Henry Zwartz is a reporter with ABC News Regional in Burnie, Tasmania. Henry has previously been a reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and worked as a journalist at Nine in Sydney. He cut his teeth working as a journalist at Karen News, an ethnic news media startup based in Burma and Thailand. He’s received two Tasmania media awards for his work in Burnie looking at the island state’s drug trade and the use of riot technology on wild seals by aquaculture companies.
Follow Henry on Twitter: @henryzwartz
The Walkley Young Australian Journalist of the Year Award category All media: Coverage of Community and Regional Affairs is supported by Google News Initiative.
