ABC Landline’s Pip Courtney wins Queensland’s Rural Story of the year

Pip’s winning story Cows for Cambodia also won the award for Best Television Story and will progress to the judging by the Australian Council of Agricultural Journalists for the national awards later this month. 

Founder and editor of digital online rural and regional news website Country Caller, Harry Clarke, was named 2023 Young Queensland Rural Journalist of the Year, with ABC Triple J Hack journalist Angel Parsons named runner-up.

Angel also won the award for Best Radio Story for her Triple J Hack story titled “Farm Daughter Succession”, which judges said demonstrated skill in relaying a rural issue to a non-rural audience. 

ABC Toowoomba reporter Tobi Loftus won the award for Best Broadcast Multimedia Story for a series of reports titled “Climate Change Changing Queensland”, which included stories focusing on a Granite Belt wine maker, Gladstone’s transition from fossil fuels toward green hydrogen, and a collection of farmers working together to help their mental health.

Abbey Halter from ABC Mackay was named runner-up in the multimedia category for her story exclusively revealing how a labour hire company was unlawfully ending PALM workers’ visas, while ABC Longreach reporter Maddelin McCosker was highly commended for her story following drover Bill Little and his team moving cattle through outback Queensland. 

A team of journalists from Queensland Country Life - Lucy Kinbacher, Sally Gall, Helen Walker and Ben Harden - won the Best Print Story category for a package of stories that ran as a four-page special report drawing attention to worsening road fatality statistics in rural Queensland during National Road Safety Week.

Queensland Country Life journalist Sally Gall was also named runner-up in the Print category for a series of stories exploring the critical juncture the veterinary profession has arrived at in rural Australia, and what that could mean for livestock industries now and into the future.

In the Best Television Category, the award for runner up was presented to Nathan Morris and Lisa Domrow of ABC and Caroline Graham from the University of Queensland for their collaborative work to produce an ABC Landline story titled Outback Musical. The story showcased one of the world’s most unique school musicals, in which school of distance of education students from an area of western Queensland roughly twice the size of Victoria rehearse for their roles remotely and via video link before coming together to perform in front of a sold-out audience in Longreach. 

A highly commended award was presented in the Best Television category to Lucy Cooper from ABC Townsville for her ABC Landline story Outback Postie, which followed Bec Climie on her epic outback mail run in the Mount Isa region.

In the photography section, the award for Queensland Rural Photograph of the Year was won by Sally Gall from Queensland Country Life for her picture titled “Long Paddock Legend”, which also won the Best People Photography category. 

Paula Heelan was named winner of the Best Landscape Photo category with an image that appeared in Outback Magazine, while Toowoomba freelance photographer David Martinelli won the Best Production Photo category with his picture of a chicken “Ruling the roost”. 

The Queensland Rural Media Awards are presented every year by the Rural Press Club of Queensland as an initiative to encourage high standards in rural and regional journalism across the State and to promote rural journalism as a rewarding and worthwhile career pathway.

The 2023 awards were presented at a Rural Press Club of Queensland lunch at Tattersall’s Club in Brisbane on Friday 19 February, with the support of award sponsors the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, the University of Queensland and Nutrien Ag Solutions.

The event also featured a panel discussion involving three journalists who, in the face of widespread community news closures in recent years, have started their own independent newspapers and magazines in regional Queensland in recent years.

The discussion, facilitated by rural reporter with The Australian Charlie Peel, and involving panellists Harry Clarke from the Country Caller, Jess Howard from Bush Journal and Matt Nicholls, covered topics including the critical importance of high quality, community relevant content as a cornerstone of rural publishing, the challenge to find ways to sustainably fund the creation of original journalism for rural and regional communities, experiences in dealing with social media algorithms and strategies to demonstrate to young journalists the value of choosing a pathway in rural and regional reporting. 

The Rural Press Club of Queensland is a not-for-profit organisation run by a committee of volunteers which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. The club runs large monthly networking events for the agricultural and agribusiness sector in Brisbane and in regional Queensland each year and relies on the valued support of major sponsors Collier’s Agribusiness, McCullough Robertson and Australian Retirement Trust. 

A full list of recipients of the 2023 Queensland Rural Media Awards announced on 16 February 2024 can be viewed from the RPC website https://www.ruralpressclub.com.au/content/previous-winners

The Queensland Rural Media Awards were sponsored by the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Nutrien Ag Solutions and The University of Queensland.