A Charles Sturt University (CSU) theatre/media graduate has won a prestigious Walkley Young Journalist of the Year Award for her online reporting of the recovery of the Grantham community in south-east Queensland following the devastating floods that swept through the town in January 2011.

 

Ms Miranda Grant, who graduated in 2006 from the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst with a Bachelor of Communication (Theatre/Media) works for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and is presently based in Toowoomba, Queensland.

 

At an awards ceremony in Sydney on Wednesday 27 June, Ms Grant won the online category of the Walkley Foundation’s Young Australian Journalist of the Year for three stories she produced for the ABC Open ‘Aftermath’ project.

 

“I’ve been working for the ABC for about 15 months and this is my first job in Australia since graduating from university after a range of professional international roles,” Ms Grant said.

 

“My time at Charles Sturt University gave me the confidence to innovate. This is the first time that I’ve called myself a journalist, which is quite ironic, I think, to receive a Walkley Award and only now feel like I’m a journalist. That’s why I feel especially appreciative of the theatre/media course. It focuses on creative storytelling, and that’s what this new online format is asking for - a re-thinking of the way journalism is structured and how journalism as storytelling is presented. The course helped me think about the medium in a very creative way.”

 

Dr Peter Simmons, the Associate Head of the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst, said, “Each year our graduates make immense contributions to Australian communities as news gatherers, entertainers, investigators and storytellers. As a School we are very proud of the compassion and innovation that Miranda Grant brings to her work. A Walkley Award for journalism represents an extremely high level of professional accomplishment, and it also represents a great communication contribution to the public good”.

 

Reflecting on the rapidly evolving nature of media generally and online journalism in particular, Ms Grant said, “I think it’s misleading to say we’ll lose the depth of (print) journalism. The ABC Open ‘Aftermath’ online project is a non-linear narrative which explores many of the perspectives and experiences of being affected by a natural disaster. It is a powerful example of an online documentary project that has even more substance than television or print could offer.

 

“I think we’ll start to see an inversion, or reversal, of the publication process. We’ll see stories published online first and then distributed across other print and broadcast platforms.”

 

Prior to joining the ABC, Ms Grant spent 12 months in Mongolia producing an English-language television program with CSU graduate Mr Mitchell O’Hearn. They were both deployed through the Australian Youth Ambassador for Development (AYAD) program. Ms Grant then produced a feature-length documentary for World Vision in Papua New Guinea. “This was very challenging, but very formative,” she said.

 

Ms Grant also worked in the Northern Territory with another CSU graduate, Ms Gabrielle Brady.

 

“This experience was very enlightening. I saw living conditions similar to the developing world and learnt so much about what Australia is.”