Despite the upheaval of a pandemic, Women in Media is delighted to award the Caroline Jones Women in Media Young Journalist’s Award for 2020.
Elly Bradfield is an ABC journalist for Southern Queensland, based in Toowoomba, and is the fourth recipient of the award since its inception in 2017. Elly has worked in Rockhampton, Mount Isa and on Queensland’s Regional Drive program.
Runner-up for this year’s award is Bec (Rebecca) Whetham, ABC features photojournalist at ABC Mt Gambier in South Australia, whose original stories are told with sensitivity, passion, heart, and a beautiful eye for a narrative.
The award is supported by the National Press Club and seeks to shine a light on outstanding reportage coming from female journalists working across our regions.
It is named in honour of Caroline Jones AO, a ground-breaking journalist who joined the ABC in 1963 and became the first female reporter for This Day Tonight. She reported for Four Corners between 1972-1981 before presenting Radio National’s Search for Meaning program.
In 1996, she became the presenter of Australian Story. Caroline is also the co-patron of Women in Media Australia.
Caroline praised the quality of this year’s entrants, all of whom provided coverage of important stories from around the country.
Elly’s winning entry “illustrates the range of her tenacious and powerful reporting from contentious public interest issues surrounding the mining industry – to the plight of a town running out of water – to an outstanding documentary on childbirth trauma in regional Queensland”.
Women in Media Canberra Convenor and judge Emma Macdonald said Elly exemplified the energy and consistent quality that the award sought to reward.
Women in Media Canberra committee member and social justice reporter Ginger Gorman said Elly was highly competent across platforms, reporting on significant local issues which were also of national public interest.
Elly was raised in country Queensland and remains committed to reporting from the bush, where she lives and works on a farm with her husband and small daughter.
Like many other women in media, she strives to manage the challenge of the work/home life ‘juggle’.
Elly has won a $2500 personal development grant and the opportunity to spend a week in Canberra being mentored by Women in Media members working in the Press Gallery and national capital media outlets.
Elly plans to use her award to travel for ‘work experience’ with programs for which she would like to work.
This content was originally published here.