It was only in December that the Walkley Foundation, the organisation responsible for awarding Australian journalists with the industry’s highest honours, was left without a chair and two other directors, following a protracted internal skirmish over the organisation’s governance.
Fast-forward four months, and the Walkley Foundation has finally drawn a line under the saga.
In a statement on Monday, the Walkley Foundation said it had added the ABC’s Bridget Brennan and The Guardian’s Nour Haydar to its board of directors, along with actor Nadine Garner, and The Australian’s David Ross, giving News Corp representation on the board.
The Walkley judging board, meanwhile, will get a new chair in Ben Butler, a Walkley Award-winning senior investigative journalist, most recently at the ABC.
The new directors will join the ABC’s Michael Slezak, who is also federal president of media at the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and the union’s media vice president, Kasun Ubayasiri, who is also a senior lecturer of communication and journalism at Griffith University. Bianca Hall, the union’s vice president of media and a journalist at The Age, will step down from the board.
The foundation’s Walkley judging board will also get a gaggle of new faces. The Seven Network’s Mike Amor will join the judging board, the foundation said on Monday, along with SBS and NITV national Indigenous affairs editor John Paul Janke, and The Guardian’s Nick Miller. Kirsty Needham, the Australia and Pacific Islands correspondent at Reuters, and two-time Walkley winner Hugh Riminton will also join the judging board.
“The Walkley Foundation is the most prestigious organisation that nurtures and celebrates journalistic excellence in Australia,” Slezak said in a statement. “And the Walkley Awards are the jewel in its crown.
“They are the gold standard for Australian journalism – they recognise the work that holds power to account, tells the stories that matter, and reminds Australians why a free and independent press is worth fighting for.”
Absent from the Monday announcement, however, were the names of the three Walkley Foundation directors who tendered their resignations late last year on the heels of a protracted internal fight over control of the organisation.
Last year’s Gold Walkley winner and former foundation chair Adele Ferguson joined former Four Corners boss Sally Neighbour and writer Victoria Laurie in stepping down from the foundation’s board late last year, after the MEAA rejected their proposals to overhaul its governance structure.
At the time, the trio described their efforts in a statement to this masthead as a move to bring the Walkley Foundation’s governance “closer to best practice”. The three directors said the MEAA’s proposal would instead only reinforce its control over the board.
“MEAA has been the backbone of the Walkley Awards since the start more than seven decades ago, created the Walkley Foundation, and as its ongoing custodian remains as committed as ever to its mission,” MEAA chief executive Erin Madeley said in a statement.
“Journalistic freedom and the conditions that allow journalistic excellence are fundamental rights at work for journalists. These appointments reflect the breadth and diversity of Australian journalism and storytelling today – from investigative reporting to screen and performance, from podcasting to foreign reporting. The foundation is in excellent hands and the best is ahead of it.”
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