Australian Press Council Prize 1997-8

Secondary School Students' section winner
Tertiary Students' section winner
Honourable mentions
Judges' comments

The Australian Press Council has announced results of its 1997-98 essay Prize. The Prize is awarded for the best essay submitted on a set topic.

In 1997-8 the topic was:

Discuss the responsibility of the press in keeping the public informed while, at the same time, respecting the privacy and sensibilities of individuals.

Entries were invited in two categories:

1. Tertiary students (as at 30 June 1999), who will have a 2,500 word limit; and
2. Secondary students (as at 30 June 1999), with a 1,500 word limit.

There were 13 entries in the secondary school section and 45 entries in the tertiary school section

Winners in each category were selected by a panel of judges, Professor John Henningham, Professor of Journalism at the University of Queensland; Margaret Jones, former Literary Editor and former Foreign Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald; and Jack Ensor, a retired high school teacher and a Public member of the Australian Press Council.

In the secondary section, the first prize of $1,500 was awarded to

Eunice Liu

Eunice is 16 and is currently completing Year 10 at Ravenswood School for Girls. She was born in Taipei, Taiwan and migrated to Australia, with her family in 1989.

In addition to finishing her School Certificate, she has been accelerated in Math and is sitting for her 3U Math Higher School Certificate this year.

Eunice plays the violin and the piano, having achieved 8th grade AMEB in both. She also enjoys singing and is part of her school's vocal ensemble and choir, as well as the orchestra. Another hobby is debating, especially impromptu debates. Her team won the Independent Schools' debating competition in 1987. Additionally Eunice enjoys reading (including Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas, Agatha Christie, Harper Lee and James Herriott), camping and bushwalking.

She sees her future in a people-oriented field, perhaps medicine or teaching, although she is also considering the media and politics as possible options.

A copy of Eunice Liu's winning entry was published in the November 1998 APC News and subsequently posted on this site.

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Julian Donnan

Julian grew up and went to school in Wagga Wagga, NSW. In 1994 he commenced an undergraduate degree in Arts (Asian Studies) and Law at the Australian National University, Canberra. He is currently in his final year and, upon graduation, intends to travel to Europe and North America.

Julian's interest include literature, athletics, golf and film. Following an interest in Japanese, he spent 12 months in japan on a Rotary Youth Exchange Program in 1991. He has briefly studied Chinese and would one day like to visit China and learn more about its people, customs and language.

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The judges also awarded Honourable Mentions to three other entrants:

Angeline Baker, in the secondary section.

Angeline is a Year 11 student at Yass High School, in country NSW. She is involved in public speaking, debating and school band. Angeline was selected in the Southern Districts debating team for the NSW schools' championships. Her other interests are history and writing. She won an essay competition run by the Contemporary European Studies Association of Australia, was placed second in the Henry Lawson Young Writers' competition and was Commended in The Sydney Morning Herald's Young Writers' competition.

Gina Preston and Melanie Ford in the tertiary section.

Gina Preston is a Master of Arts (Communications) student at Monash University, having graduated with a BA (Hons) from that university in 1993. Her honours thesis in Politics contrasted Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. For her MA she is researching "A Communications Strategy to Organise Women Working in Small Business".

Melanie Ford, from Moss Vale in the NSW Southern Highlands, just south-west of Sydney, is currently studying law at the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur. She graduated earlier this year as a Bachelor of Arts at the same university. She aims to go to the Bar and practice in criminal law.

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Judges' comments on the 1997-8 APC Prize

[See also the comments made by the 1994 judges]

The judges made several comments on the entrants for the Prize.

They reiterated remarks made by previous judges that the best entries demonstrated solid research of the topic and included a detailed bibliography of the works consulted.

The less successful entries lacked a sophistication of approach: they either assumed that all media were alike and that all were at the tabloid/trash/television current affairs end of the spectrum. Such entries did not adequately deal with the more responsible and informed media, especially broadsheet newspapers. They tended to engage in "press bashing" and skim over the aspects of the topic that referred to the press' responsibility to inform readers on matters of public interest.

As such, these entries tended to lack individuality and to draw on the same examples from the popular press.

The judges also thought that the better entries had some idea of the place of press self-regulation in the question of achieving a balance between personal privacy and the press' responsibility to inform and that they understood the different approaches taken to the questions by the print and the electronic media.

Those judges who had been involved in previous Prize judging thought that the overall standard was far higher in 1997-8 and commended the students generally.

Individual comments by each of the judges were sent to each student who entered.

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See also: 1998-9 APC Prize topic and conditions of entry
Eunice Liu's 1997-8 prize winning essay