Australian Press Council Prize 2002
Results and judges' comments

Winner
Honourable mentions
Judges' comments

The Australian Press Council has announced results of its 2002 essay Prize. The Prize is awarded for the best essay submitted on a set topic.

In 2002 the topic was:

Principle 7 says that publications should not "place any gratuitous emphasis on, among other things, the race, religion, nationality, colour [or] country of origin ... of an individual or group. Nevertheless, where it is relevant and in the public interest, publications may report and express opinions in these areas." Is it possible to report, and properly comment on, the news with such a restriction? Is the public interest exception too wide?

Entries were invited from tertiary students (as at 30 June 2002), who had a 2,500 word limit

There were 48 entries in the essay prize.

Winners were selected by a panel of judges, Dr Ian Richards, journalism co-ordinator at the University South Australia; Sybil Nolan, a journalist member of the Council; and Jack Ensor, a public member of the Council.

The Winner: the first prize of $2000 was awarded to to Molly Blair, a masters' student at Bond University. Her winning entry is posted to this website.

Molly Blair was born in Melbourne in November 1975 and moved to Adelaide when she was four years old. In Adelaide she attended the Wilderness School where she was the school magazine editor and recipient of the Senior School Prose award. During her high school years, she also received a highly commended and a first prize in the Young Writers' Award short story section.

In 1993 she went on to the University of Adelaide, study towards a Bachelor of Arts, completed in 1995. There Molly was the editor of the St Marks College Magazine and a writer of the College Review.

After graduating Molly moved to Melbourne where she worked in the script department as a researcher and publicity writer for the Channel 7 drama, Blue Heelers. Deciding that she wanted to see the world, in 1999 she moved to Sydney and became an international flight attendant for QANTAS.

Late last year she came back to earth, leaving the airline to continue her love of writing; but, rather than returning to television, Molly determined to pursue a career in journalism. Accordingly she now moved to the Gold Coast and enrolled at Bond University in the Masters of Journalism program. She has received a Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence.

When she completes her Masters, at the end of this year, she hopes to become a feature-writer for magazines and newspapers.

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Honourable Mentions: The judges also awarded an Honourable Mentions to two students, both from the Queensland University of Technology: Cherylanne Rees and Kiara Woollham.

Cherylanne Ross is 36 years-of-age and is currently a mature-age student at QUT. She has a 4-year-old daughter and consequently is kept pretty busy between study and her parenting duties.

Cherylanne is in her final year studying journalism and this year began an undergraduate law degree. At this stage she hopes to practice law, at least for a while, when she graduates.

She finds both journalism and the law interest her because she sees them as offering opportunities to contribute to society and requiring ethical and motivated people to do so. The inter-relationship between both disciplines and ways that relationship can be improved also interests her.

Kiara Woollams is a nineteen year old second year student at the Queensland University of Technology, studying a Bachelor of Journalism and a Bachelor of Business in Public Relations. She enjoys learning about the media and hopes to one day work as a broadcast journalist in television, or in the print media, in the areas of education, the environment or finance.

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Judges' comments on the 2002 APC Prize

[See also the comments made by the 1994 judges and
the comments made by the 1998 judges]

Judge 1: Given recent events and the subject of the essay, it is not surprising that similar issues were discussed in the majority of essays. I thought that there was considerable variation in the standard but was still difficult to select a shortlist of favored candidates.

Judge 2: Reporting on minorities is a complex issue, one which requires careful consideration of real events in journalism and society, as well as reference to ideal practice. Overall, there was too much of the latter and not enough of the former in these essays. In many, there was a disappointing deficiency of in-depth analysis of actual press coverage and adjudications by the Press Council, particularly of a recent nature.

Judge 3: Many of the entries reflected insufficient appreciation of the difficulties of balancing freedom of speech with sensitivity to race, religion, nationality, color and country of origin. Some entrants appeared not to understand the complexities underlying the question, and reduced a topic which has many shades of grey to a somewhat 'black and white' argument. Others seemed to undervalue the principle of freedom of speech. Having said that, though, a significant number of entries also reflected a strong grasp of the issues and a coherent approach to the question.

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See also:
2003 APC Prize topic and conditions of entry