Spotlight on Nina Funnell
Winner of the 2021 June Andrews Award for Women’s Leadership in Media with Kerry Warren, Gina McWilliams, Hannah Stenning and Georgia-Kate Schubert.
“It’s important to note that #LetHerSpeak/#LetUsSpeak was always about dismantling legal barriers to speaking out. Beyond that though, we need to tackle the far more insidious social and cultural barriers which make speaking out so challenging.”
Nina Funnell’s #LetHerSpeak campaign against sexual assault gag laws won the 2020 Walkley Award for Public Service Journalism and 2020 Our Watch Award, and has now won the 2021 June Andrews Award for Women’s Leadership in Media.
“Let Her Speak is an outstanding entry in an outstanding field,” the judges said. “It led to laws being changed in three jurisdictions and sparked a national conversation about sexual assault. It is courageous, transformative journalism.”
We spoke with Nina about the wide-ranging new impacts that her reporting has had, and the career highlight of overseeing the collaboration of a news outlet, a law firm and two sexual assault advocacy groups.
Since we last spoke, after winning the 2020 Walkley Award for Public Service Journalism, what are some of the impacts that have come from the Let Her Speak and Let Us Speak campaign of stories?
Since last we spoke, Victoria has finally overhauled the atrocious sexual assault victim gag-law which they introduced in February 2020, and which I and the campaign partner organisations have been advocating against.
That law made it a crime for sexual assault survivors to speak out under their own names, in cases which had resulted in a conviction. Both survivors and journalists alike could face up to four months jail or heavy fines.
Thanks to the #LetUsSpeak campaign, that law was reformed in November 2020. I particularly want to single out the contribution of Jaime-lee Page and Nicole Lee, who were the first two survivors to spearhead the cause in that state. To date, the campaign has changed four laws in three jurisdictions.
What needs to happen next, in terms of impacts that you’d like to see this reporting have?
Right now, the Victorian Government is still debating whether or not it should be a crime to publish the names of deceased sexual assault victims. Impacted family members — such as Jill Meagher’s mum and Aiia Maasarwe’s dad — have both slammed the proposed censorship regime. Yet, the Victorian Government has repeatedly defended its position that the names of murdered rape victims should not be publishable. The campaign is still working to reform this.
Beyond that objective, I think it’s important to note that #LetHerSpeak/#LetUsSpeak was always about dismantling legal barriers to speaking out. Beyond that though, we need to tackle the far more insidious social and cultural barriers which make speaking out so challenging.
The campaign brought together a number of different organisations — is there anyone else you’d like to thank for their help with these stories?
The media side of the campaign was run as a news.com.au campaign in partnership with NT News, The Hobart Mercury and The Herald Sun.
But the backbone of the campaign was the 17 survivor stories — starting with Grace Tame’s. Grace and the other 16 survivors all had legal work performed for them by Marque Lawyers, and Marque Lawyers also conducted significant legal research, and assisted the campaign by taking a lead on writing submissions to government. I am grateful to the whole team at Marque, particularly Michael Bradley and Lauren Gasparini.
The other two partner organisations are End Rape On Campus Australia and Rape & Sexual Assault Research & Advocacy initiative. News outlets all have megaphones, what they don’t often have is field experts. Working with people such as Dr Rachael Burgin, Chair of RASARA, and Sharna Bremner, founder of EROC Australia, was essential for the success of the campaign as they both lent their extraordinary expertise in understanding sexual assault, impacts of trauma, and law reform.
It’s been a privilege and career highlight to oversee that collaboration of a news outlet, a law firm, and two sexual assault advocacy groups, to produce and run a campaign we can all be proud of.
Do you have a message, in light of the industry acclaim for your work on Let Her Speak, to the Australian public about why it’s important that we continue to support quality journalism?
This kind of journalism is not easy. Or cheap. To do it properly I spent three months prior to launch just researching, evaluating the landscape, feeling out the appetite for reform, forming partnerships, and then designing a campaign strategy for launch.
I was also granted two grants — one from the Walkley Foundation and one from Judith Neilson Institute to help with this work.
Beyond that, a huge number of unpaid hours also went into this campaign — not just by myself, but by the partners and others.
But the work has paid off. Aside from securing four law reforms, the campaign has also helped spark a national conversation about sexual assault, especially since Grace Tame — the original case study in the campaign — was named Australian of the Year for her bravery in telling her story.
Nina Funnell is a Walkley Award-winning journalist and author. She is the creator and powerhouse behind the #LetHerSpeak/#LetUsSpeak campaign, which in 2020 led to the overhaul of sexual assault victim gag-laws in Tasmania, Victoria, and the Northern Territory. She is currently working on her second book Let Her Speak (Harper Collins, 2022).
Join our free webinar The Business of Freelancing at 5.30pm on Wednesday 4 August 2021, with freelance journalist Nina Funnell and speakers from Media Super, PwC and Hnry.
