Broadcasting award for Landline reporter

ABC Landline reporter Pip Courtney, whose husband cameraman John Bean was killed in a helicopter crash last month, has won an international rural broadcaster award.

Courtney won the IFAJ Star Prize for Broadcast Journalism for “Pipe Dreams,” a piece that included images filmed by her late husband.

The judging panel described her report on the coal seam gas industry as “impossible to fault”.

They noted it was “balanced and objective, precise and sharply edited, and featured great characters in a package that informed any audience, general or specialist.”

Together with Julie Holman and Flint Duzfield from ABC Rural, Courtney was selected to represent Australia in the competition after the three won their categories in the 2011 Rabobank Australian Star Prize for Rural Broadcasting. She was chosen to represent Australia in Canada but cancelled the trip after news broke of the helicopter tragedy.

Today she dedicated the honour to Bean.

“He not only produced great pictures for the journalists he worked with, but put the talent at ease so they always came away with more than planned,” she said.

“He was my biggest supporter — my greatest fan. If things had been different he’d be in our home in Australia right now tweeting, facebooking, texting and phoning everyone he knew to tell them about the wonderful news.

“I am thrilled and honoured to win this award. It’s an important story in Australia and I am very grateful the ABC gave me the time to research and shoot such a complex piece. The story was filmed over several months and I was lucky enough to shoot most of it with my husband.”

This photo, snapped by Bean with a timer, was the last shot of the couple to be taken.