Herald and Age journalists recognised at Kennedy Awards
By Riley Walter
Journalists from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have been recognised at the 2024 Kennedy Awards, taking home several prizes, including for coverage of the Bondi Junction stabbings.
The Herald won the outstanding online news breaking award for its coverage of the Bondi Junction attack in which six people – mother Ashlee Good, 38; bride-to-be Dawn Singleton, 25; artist Pikria Darchia, 55; architect Jade Young, 47; Chinese economics student Yixuan Cheng, 27, and Westfield security guard Faraz Tahir, 30 – were killed.
The Sydney Morning Herald won a Kennedy Award for its online coverage of the Bondi Junction attacks.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
The winners were announced in front of more than 400 journalists and media industry figures at the Kennedy Foundation’s annual gala dinner at Royal Randwick on Friday night.
Herald editor Bevan Shields said he was proud of all the paper’s finalists and winners.
“The award for our digital coverage of the terrible Bondi Junction tragedy is a particularly rewarding recognition of the great skill and care a huge team of Herald staff applied to that important story,” he said.
Herald cartoonist Cathy Wilcox won the outstanding cartoon category for her Solid Ground illustration.
Herald cartoonist Cathy Wilcox’s Solid Ground cartoon.Credit:
The Age photographer Eddie Jim won the outstanding portrait photography category for his coverage of Fiji residents under threat from rising seas.
The outstanding finance reporting award was won by The Australian Financial Review’s Neil Chenoweth, who was last year named joint winner of journalist of the year.
Other winners on Friday included the ABC’s John Lyons, who was named journalist of the year, as well as the winner of the outstanding team player or mentor award.
Channel Nine stalwart Tracy Grimshaw was given a lifetime achievement award.
Kennedy Foundation chair Carl Dumbrell said the celebration of Australian journalism came at “the very time the business of it is struggling”.
“Everyone had a great evening, be they contenders, sponsors or media heavyweights, and demonstrated that not only is the Kennedy Foundation going from strength to strength, but that excellent journalism is still well and truly alive,” he said.
A record 1014 entries were received across 38 categories of the competition, which is named after the respected crime reporter Les Kennedy, who died in 2011 at the age of 53.