Margaret Simons appointed to The Scott Trust

The Scott Trust, shareholder of Guardian Media Group, has announced the appointment of Margaret Simons, an Honorary Principal Fellow at the Centre for Advancing Journalism, to its board.

Dr Margaret Simons is an award-winning journalist, author, and journalism academic.  She was director of CAJ from 2012 until 2017, and was a founding director of Australia’s Public Interest Journalism Initiative from 2018 until 2021. She is also a founding director of the hyperlocal journalism startup *PS Media. She holds a Doctorate in Creative Arts from the University of Technology Sydney.

Dr Simons is the author of over 14 books as well as substantial essays.  She has published extensively on journalism, the media and politics, including biographies of Kerry Stokes, the new Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, and former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.

She is also a novelist and gardening writer.

In 2015 she won a Walkley, Australia’s premier journalism award, for her essay on sex tourism in the Philippines. Her reporting from the Philippines has also won two Quill Awards – the premier journalism awards for the state of Victoria – and a Foreign Press Association award. Over a four-decade journalistic career, she has written for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Monthly, Crikey, and the Guardian, among others.