Triple J, ABC, Coronacast and Hedley Thomas in the running for radio/audio Walkley Awards

The finalists for the 65th annual Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism have been revealed.

The ABC is most prominent across the radio and audio categories, however there are also nominees from Audible and The Australian.

In the Radio/Audio Feature category, Rachael Brown and the ABC Trace Team are up for Trace: The Informer, which features police informant and disgraced gangland barrister, Nicola Gobbo.

Nicola Harvey, Nakkiah Lui and Miranda Tapsell are also up for their Debutante podcast, which is an Audible Original. Debutante features Lui and Tapsell and is about “race, resistance and girl power”.

The final nominee in the Radio/Audio Feature is Hedley Thomas, Slade Gibson and Peter Murphy for their podcast The Night Driver via The Australian. Thomas previously won the Gold Walkley Award in 2018 for The Teacher’s Pet podcast. The Night Driver explores Janine Vaughan’s disappearance 19 years ago.

In the Radio/Audio News and Current Affairs category, it’s all about the ABC.

Avani Dias from triple J’s Hack is nominated for ‘The colleague, the girl, the police: Student framed and improsoned over terror offences tells whole story for the first time‘, a report about Mohamed Kamer Nizamdeen who was held in solitary confinement for a month on terror offences. Police then admitted they’d arrested the wrong person.

The ABC’s highly successful COVID-19 podcast, Coronacast, is also nominated, with Dr Norman Swan, Tegan Taylor and Will Ockenden listed as finalists.

The final nominee in the Radio/Audio News and Current Affair category is ‘The Village Idiot Killing‘, which aired on ABC’s AM program. Mark Willacy, Alexandrea Blucher and Rory Callinan are nominated for the content. The audio covered an Australian special forces soldier who was under investigation for killing an Afghan man who was allegedly unarmed and intellectually disabled.

Winners of the 65th Walkley Awards will be revealed at 7pm (AEDT) on November 20 on SKY NEWS EXTRA and the Walkleys website.