Charlie Pickering and the team from ABCTV’s The Weekly program have tonight won the 2015 ACFID Media Award for their program examining budget cuts to the Australian Aid program.
The Award, presented at ACFID’s National Conference in Sydney tonight, was for a segment that according to the judging panel “reframed the conversation about cuts to the Government’s aid program using creativity and humour”.
“ACFID believes this segment made an outstanding contribution to expanding the knowledge of Australians about international development issues and was a remarkable incursion to the pre-2015 Budget debate about cuts to the Australian aid program,” said the Executive Director of the Australian Council for International Development, Mr Marc Purcell.
“ACFID received a number of very impressive nominations for the award this year and, as a result, introduced a new category of ‘highly commended’ for the Media Awards,” Mr Purcell said.
“This year, Catherine McGrath, the Chief Political Correspondent of SBSTV received a highly commended award for her series of news stories on the impact of the Government’s cut to the Australian aid budget.
“Jamie Walker, now the Middle East Correspondent for The Australian newspaper, also received a highly commended award for his sensitive and consistent reporting on the Ebola crisis in Africa.
“ACFID would like to thank the many journalists and ACFID Members for the many nominations they submitted,” Mr Purcell said.
Media Contact: Lyn Larkin 0400 343 227