Guardian Australia has claimed an award for innovation at the 69th annual Walkley awards for excellence in journalism.
At the awards evening in Sydney on Tuesday, a team of Rafqa Touma, Ariel Bogle, Mostafa Rachwani, Nick Evershed, Andy Ball, Christelle Basil and Shelley Hepworth claimed the category for digital media innovation for the Leaving Gaza interactive.
The story showcased text messages exchanged between Palestinian friends – one in Gaza, one in the US – in the opening days of the Israel-Gaza war.
Guardian Australia was also a finalist in the same category for a different story.
Guardian Australia was a finalist in the Indigenous affairs and short feature writing categories, long current affairs category, specialist and beat reporting category, cartoon of the year category, and commentary and analysis category.
The Gold Walkley was won by Nine newspapers’ investigative team for their Building Bad series on the CFMEU union.
In other categories, Nick Moir was named photographer of the year for his portfolio of work published in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Andrew Fowler took out the Walkley book award for Nuked: The Submarine Fiasco that Sank Australia’s Sovereignty.
Robert Gottliebsen, who was described by the Walkley Foundation’s board of directors as a pioneering business journalist, was also honoured for his outstanding contribution to journalism.
The scoop of the year was awarded to Nine Newspapers for a series of stories about the former Home Affairs department secretary Mike Pezzullo.
The award for investigative reporting went to Seven News’s Chris Reason for a story about the former Bishop of Broome, and the award for business journalism was won by the ABC for a series about strata management companies.