CAJ students shine at the Ossies

Seven students from the Centre for Advancing Journalism have been awarded prizes at the Ossie Awards, the annual competition held by the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia.

“Congratulations to all the students who entered these awards, and to all the CAJ lecturers and tutors for their teaching and guidance,” said Andrew Dodd, the CAJ director.

Category Winners:

• The Dorkin Award for Investigative Journalism, Marilyn Tan and Xinyi Li, ‘It consumes your life’: Landfill’s rotten smells and toxic history

Marilyn and Xinyi investigated the Kealba landfill, which has been burning for almost three years and affected the environment and residents’ health. Despite obstacles like the refusal of sources to comment, the destruction of data and the threat of defamation challenges, they persisted and got the story.

• Best video story (long-form) , Sean Ruse, Marching orders: The law versus climate activists

Sean’s story documented draconian shifts in how Australian governments dealt with climate protesters, exploring the causes of these changes, their implications for democracy, and the activists’ response.

• Best audio story (long-form), Jade Murray, To Infinity and Beyond

Jade reported on the thesis of atmospheric scientist Jean Laby, the first woman to graduate from the university with a PhD in Physics, whose world-class research made an enormous contribution to the study of cosmic rays and climatology.

• The Private Media Award for Diversity, Hannah Hammoud, Faith and fasting: Muslim athletes playing on through Ramadan

Hannah reported an untold story from the Muslim Arab-Australian community about faith and sporting success.

Highly commended:

• The Crikey Award for Investigative Journalism, Gwen (Qiyun) Liu, Rental crisis: Desperate students turn to Chinese brokers and pay price

Gwen, the 2023 Citizen cadet, exposed how China-based property brokers have preyed on international students during the rental crisis in Australia. The story is also been a finalist in Democracy’s Watchdogs this year.

• Best text-based story, Jacob Wallace, In Brimbank, the pokies and the damage done

Jacob’s piece exposed the under-covered issue of how Australia loses more on legal gambling per capita than any other country in the world.

• Best video story (short-form), Ann Khorany, Embassy Scam
• Adobe Creative Best Data Journalism, Ann Khorany, Stuck in the property queue? You can thank the occupy movement

Ann received high commendations in two categories. In 'Embassy Scam,' she documented how international students in Australia were targeted and affected by various ongoing scams generally absent from the news sphere. After extracting data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics about the abundance of vacant apartment units during the rental crisis, she delved into the story behind the numbers.

For a full list of the JERRA 2023 Ossies winners, click here