Walkley Award nominees

ABC TV dominates the Television nominees at this year’s Walkley Awards.

The public broadcaster has 8 nominations, well ahead of SBS and Nine both with two nominations.

The Walkley Awards will be announced on Thursday December 9, and broadcast on SBS ONE at 10.05pm that same evening.

Television News and Current Affairs Camera

Bentley Dean, ABC TV, “Contact”
Filmed in remote and rugged Western Australia where, in 1964, first contact between a group of 20 Aboriginal Australians, the modern world and white man took place. Intimate camerawork helps transport Yuwali, a surviving member of the group, to 1964 when cars, or “moving rocks”, chased her, panicked and bewildered, across the desert.

David Martin, Foreign Correspondent, ABC TV, “The Electric Range”
Shooting alone, Martin journeyed to La Paz to document Bolivia’s vast lithium reserves, key to the electric vehicle and Bolivia’s future.

Neale Maude, Four Corners, ABC TV, “A Careful War” (part 1) (part 2)
Maude braved 48-degree heat for one month, carrying 20 plus kilos of camera equipment, water and body armour and worked under the constant threat of explosives and gunfire, to visually capture the daily lives of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.

Television News Reporting

Laurie Oakes, Nine Network, “Labor Leaks”
Oakes received inside information on two key movements within the Labor Party, creating stories that became significant issues in the election. The big question was, where had the leaks come from?

Sally Sara and Wayne McAllister, ABC TV News, ABC TV, “Baby Benazir”
Independent and comprehensive coverage from the first Australian media crew to report from the devastation of Pakistan’s worst flood on record.

Mark Simkin and Chris Uhlmann, ABC TV, “The Scoop”
Uhlmann and Simkin broke the spectacular news, on the 7pm ABC television bulletin, that Kevin Rudd’s position as prime minister was under threat. Said MP Joe Hockey of the scoop’s primacy: ‘Kevin Rudd didn’t even know about it until he saw it on the ABC…’

Television Current Affairs, Feature, Documentary or Special (more than 20 minutes)

Martin Butler, ABC TV, “Contact”
Captured the thought process and emotion behind the moment in 1964 when 20 Aboriginal Australians encountered white men and the modern world for the first time.

Quentin McDermott, Janine Cohen, Caro Meldrum-Hanna, Four Corners, ABC TV, “Scientology: The Ex-Files”
Punctured the secretive world of the Church of Scientology’s Sea Organisation and its decades of labour exploitation.

Sophie McNeill and Geoff Parish, Dateline, SBS TV, “Questions from Oruzgan”
Held the Australian Defence Force to account over February 2009 killing of six Afghan civilians, including four children and one teenager.

Television Current Affairs Reporting (less than 20 minutes)

Fouad Hady and Ashley Smith, Dateline, SBS, “Iraq’s Deadly Legacy”
In war-torn Iraq, children suffer from harrowing birth defects and life-threatening illnesses, apparently caused by the US army’s use of depleted uranium
weaponry. A devastating story told through persistent, skilled video journalism.

Tracy Grimshaw, A Current Affair, Nine Network, “Shelly’s Story”
An interview with Shelly Walsh, a police officer from Cowra, NSW, who stumbled across the murder scene of her mother and two children, killed with an axe by her own father. Shelly was also attacked with the axe before she made an escape.

Tim Palmer, Ges D’Souza, Greg Miskelly, The 7.30 Report, ABC TV, “Abusive priests continue in service of the church”
A two-part report uncovering extensive new allegations against a sex abuser who continued to minister in the Catholic Church even after church investigators ruled that he had offended.

Commended:
Michael O’Donnell and Michael Munro Sunday Night, Seven Network, “Kokoda: The Lost Battlefield”