The John Curtin Prize for Journalism: Shortlist 2006

Judges

Eric Beecher (Convenor), Gerard Henderson and Liz Jackson

Forty-two entries were received for The John Curtin Prize for Journalism. There were a number of well-written and significant journalistic pieces entered – from which a shortlist of four was selected. However, the judges were of the opinion that for such a prize the field should have been wider. It is hoped that the awarding of the inaugural John Curtin Prize for Journalism will encourage more entries in future years.

Shortlist

Information Idol: How Google is Making Us Stupid

Gideon Haigh
(The Monthly)

We all know about googling, but how much do we know about the way Google is 'infiltrating and colonising' the English language? In a richly researched and highly predictive piece, Gideon Haigh analyses the impact of the Google phenomenon on the way we use and comprehend language. 'To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail; to the man with Google, everything looks like information.'

The Tall Man
Chloe Hooper
(The Monthly)

An exceptionally well-written piece of journalism that lays bare the disturbing circumstances surrounding the death of an Aboriginal man in a police station on Palm Island. Chloe Hooper attended the inquest on the island over a number of weeks and vividly conveys the differing perspectives and conflicting loyalties that underpin the varying accounts of the witnesses. The quality of her writing reveals the deeply dysfunctional nature of the Palm Island community in which this tragedy occurred.

Generation Lost in the Desert, Frontier Too Far, and Scams in the Desert

Nicholas Rothwell
(The Australian)

A series of articles that document the neglect and abuse that have been allowed to flourish in remote Aboriginal communities, and the corruption within the indigenous art world. Nicholas Rothwell raises broad and important questions about the way in which past policy has failed Indigenous Australia, the future of remote Aboriginal settlements and outlines the shift in thinking on how to deal with rampant drug and alcohol abuse. His insights grow out of extensive time spent in specific communities, and he conveys both the complexity of the issues involved and the urgency of the need for action.

Ties That Bind

Margaret Simons
(Griffith Review)

'What did we think we were doing, the day we went to Narre Warren,' asks Margaret Simons as she begins her journey into the paradoxes and paradigms of Australian suburban life. It is set chiefly in two locations: Kath and Kim’s shopping mall filled with people with 'bleached hair, artfully ruffled and stressed jeans and tracksuits' and, 45 minutes away, a café-laden inner-city suburb where 'two bookshops face each other across a road almost entirely devoted to conspicuous refinement and good taste'. This is a riveting story about two Australias.