Tips for entering the 2018 Walkley Awards
Lenore Taylor, Guardian Australia editor and deputy chair of the Walkley Judging Board, shares some tips for entering the Walkley Awards.
Who enters the Walkleys?
The Walkley Awards are self nominated, so everyone can enter their best work. It’s often surprising when we see the entries come in that some of the year’s outstanding stories just haven’t been entered. I think sometimes journalists think — quite wrongly — that only certain kinds of stories win.
The Walkley Foundation has worked hard over the last ten years to ensure that the awards are for all journalists and every news organisation. Commercial news outlets regularly win Walkleys and last year’s winning entries from Nine’s A Current Affair and 60 Minutes prove that. The addition of our production category, and the broadening of Headline to all media including tweets, provide greater opportunity to recognise those who work so hard behind the scenes and screens.
Digital is welcome in nearly every category. It’s great to see The Conversation, The Project, BuzzFeed, Junkee and Vice all entering. Great journalism is great journalism, wherever it appears and whatever its form.
Podcasts have been growing, and we expect to see a large number entered this year in both the audio and specialist All Media categories. But there are less than two weeks to enter, for those used to working to a deadline.
The Walkley Awards are the peak recognition for journalism in Australia. Can you talk a bit about what makes for a successful application?
What makes a Walkley such a great honour is that it’s judged by your peers in the industry. It’s a huge operation each year to recruit more than 100 judges across 30 categories, but it means that when you win that trophy it’s because your peers decided your story was the best in that year.
Those 100 judges — we work hard to make sure they reflect a very diverse range of media organisations, backgrounds and geographic areas. When they get to the judging room they leave their organisation behind and they have to assess the stories in front of them. They have to take into account the resources the journalist was working with, the challenges they faced and the ways they dealt with those challenges.
I recommend taking some time to read the Categories Explained and thinking about where your work has the best chance. You can enter the same story into two categories, which is a good way to maximise your chances.
My final piece of advice would be to use your entry statement wisely. Give the judges the colour and background of what it took to get that story. Showing the impact of a story is really important — and impact can mean changing law and policy, but it can also mean impact at a human level. Alternatively you could talk about the scale of how many people your story reached. Those 400 words go a long way to getting you noticed.
Why is it important to recognise journalism by the Awards?
With disruption to business models and threats against journalism, there has never been a more important time to acknowledge the role great journalism plays. Journalism tells the stories of our nation, is a record of history and holds the powerful to account. It is fundamental to democracy and civil society.
The Walkley Awards recognise the best stories of the year, and those stories in their own right have often had significant impact on the fabric of society. Walkley Award-winning journalism continually has impact that we can’t underestimate, from holding politicians to account through to influencing royal commissions.
The goal of the Walkley Awards is to recognise exemplary reporting; what are some of the most memorable stories you’ve seen recognised during your time on the Board?
Andrew Quilty winning the Gold Walkley in 2016 was wonderful on so many levels — to recognise a photojournalist with that top honour for the first time, to recognise a freelancer who has really put himself on the line to tell the stories of Afghanistan… And the fact that he’d been one of the first winners at the Walkley Young Australian Journalist of the Year Awards less than a decade earlier, it was a great narrative.
Last year’s Documentary winners, Liz Jackson along with Martin Butler, Bentley Dean and Tania Nehme, would have to be one of the most poignant moments I have seen at the Walkleys. Their winning film A Sense of Self was a document of Liz’s commitment to journalism — and what a generous and brave act, to chronicle her own descent into Parkinson’s disease. Liz’s speech on accepting the award has to go down as one of the most moving industry moments.
There’s sometimes the perception that industry awards are just industry talking to industry. What role do you think The Walkley Awards play in enhancing journalism’s reputation in the wider community?
The Foundation is working to get better at sharing the stories behind the stories of Walkley winners — we want all Australians to understand that great journalism makes a difference for everyone in our society. The Walkley team have started sharing some great interviews with award-winners online here, so watch this space. I’d encourage anyone to sign up for the Walkley email newsletter to stay up to date with the many events and stories that are announced.
This interview was first published by Telum Media.
