A year after promising to review its sponsorship policy, the Walkley Foundation has doubled down on its fossil fuel links, pledging to honour its commercial arrangement with Ampol and refusing to rule out similar sponsorships in the future.
The Walkley Foundation, responding to questions I posed about its “Platinum” sponsorship deal with the petroleum company, has also refused to reveal how long its contract with Ampol lasts, and won’t comment on any details of the commercial partnership, “for business confidentiality reasons”. Last year the nation’s finest cartoonists started a boycott of the Walkley Awards, which other journalists (including me) soon joined. The same will happen again in 2024.
Having spent nine months working on the most substantial piece of work I’ve ever written, I would have loved to enter the Walkleys this year. But as the climate crisis worsens, I, like so many others, cannot support the awards if it also means turning a blind eye to greenwashing and supporting fossil fuel.
In response to the boycott, the Walkley Foundation produced a new sponsorship and donations policy, as promised. However, the policy does nothing to respond to the boycott’s concerns. It makes no mention of fossil fuels. It states the foundation will “not accept money from companies or individuals that it deems to pose a significant reputational risk due to the nature of their dealings that offer no tangible benefit to humanity”, yet does not define what constitutes “reputational risk”. Arguably it demonstrates no understanding of “reputational risk” or “benefit to humanity” whatsoever.
The policy also states the foundation formed a “sponsorship and philanthropy board subcommittee” to review and consider “all new financial agreements on a case-by-case basis to ensure an alignment of organisational values and practice”.
Who is on this subcommittee? The Walkley Foundation only replied by saying “all sponsorship decisions are decided by the full board” and “all directors are able to participate in the subcommittee”. Which sounds, frankly, like it’s indistinguishable from the full board.
The Walkleys has a long and established association with fossil fuels: the driving force behind the formation of the awards was none other than Ampol’s founder, Sir William Gaston Walkley. (Walkley is renowned for his racism too, although that’s another story.)
The foundation’s oil association hasn’t been restricted to Ampol, however. In 2010, journalist Jess Hill wrote about the fresh concerns among Australian journalists over the top sponsor of the Walkley Media Conference: ExxonMobil. At the time, ExxonMobil was lobbying against a global emissions agreement and funding groups, which promoted scepticism about climate change. Its sponsorship of the Walkleys was viewed by many as a related greenwashing effort.
One of the leaders of last year’s boycott, Walkley-winning cartoonist Jon Kudelka, articulated his thinking about contemporary fossil fuel sponsorship in this post, and news of the Walkleys’ continuing association with Ampol prompted his recent observation that “the obfuscation and kicking the can down the road [by the Walkley Foundation] is all part of the pathology of taking the money”.
There is growing consternation among other journalists and writers that they should be forced to choose between industry recognition and self-respect; to decide if celebrating quality journalism means celebrating fossil fuels.
“This is a fossil fuel company enlisting our industry — the finest of our work — to greenwash its logo and perpetuate a business model which is driving catastrophic climate heating and the sixth great extinction,” writes Walkley-winning journalist Jo Chandler.
“Of course it is about image and influence — why else would they do it? It is a triumph for them and a slur on all of us in the industry. ‘Walkley Award-winning journalist’ was something I was proud to have in my biography. Not any more.
“I will not enter, judge or participate in Walkley anything as long as Ampol or any other fossil fuel company is a sponsor.”
Pascall Prize-winning arts journalist, writer, critic, editor and poet Alison Croggon observes that “accepting continuing fossil fuel sponsorship in the current climate crisis is surely unsustainable for any organisation, but especially so for any non-profit, like the Walkleys, that bases its public image on the idea of ethics and responsibility in public information. Reputational damage is inevitable.”
Several journalists discouraged by their employers from making public comments about contentious issues nevertheless reiterated their private discomfort about the Walkley’s sponsorship. One, a journalist who has previously been a Walkley finalist, wrote, “It is deeply disappointing that the peak awards for journalism in Australia are not appropriately recognising the harm caused by the climate crisis and the significant contribution of the fossil fuel sector to that harm.”
Unsurprisingly, the Walkley Awards still doesn’t have an award category for climate-related journalism, although under significant pressure last year it introduced a mid-year category in support of coverage of “science and the environment”. It would be hard to respect an environmental award existing under this Ampol banner, however.
Writer and climate scientist Joëlle Gergis won’t be entering, stating that the reason the political response to climate change has been so disastrously delayed is “because of the influence the fossil fuel industry has on our governments and the media’s failure to adequately report the issue.”
If climate change is the great moral challenge of our time, she goes on to say, “How can the premier award scheme for Australian journalism be supported by corporations that are responsible for the root cause of global warming? As a climate scientist, I urge the Walkley Foundation to reconsider its position and refuse sponsorship from the fossil fuel companies that are destabilising the Earth’s climate.”
Walkley-winning cartoonist and very good boy First Dog on the Moon will be boycotting again this year, raising the prospect that the Walkleys’ best cartoon will again be the award for Australia’s best B-list cartoonist. In which case, is it even worth handing out? Dog’s statement is worth quoting in full:
MSM journalism loves to tell itself (and anyone who will listen) that it has not chosen a side. The searing contempt that most media is held in by so many (especially young people who don’t even read it anymore) suggests that the only people who believe journalism has not chosen a side are are those who work in journalism. Of course journalism chooses sides, it is embarrassing to pretend it does not, and nobody is surprised that it is usually the side of wealth and power. Oopsies. Not all journalists choose the dark side of course which is useful because we can tell ourselves the media is not largely responsible for keeping us in the mess we find ourselves in.
I am however gracious enough to acknowledge that the Walkleys are welcome to choose whichever sponsors they want, it’s a free country especially when you are an organisation created solely for the purpose of patting journalists on the back — I’m sure Phillip Morris would be chuffed to be asked (tobacco being less of a danger to life on earth than the anthropogenic mass extinction heading our way). People like to laud us cartoonists as having free rein to speak to truth to power and wouldn’t that be nice. The Walkleys will not miss me but I will be missing the Walkleys until they get their shit together and stop taking fossil fuel money. Pretending to care and doing nothing is worse than just telling all these climate sooks to go stick a Walkley (very pointy) because here at the Walkleys we value cash over credibility.
Finally, on a personal note: I’ve played a part in the Walkley Awards over many years, both as a judge and having commissioned and edited award-winning essays from the likes of Helen Garner, Jess Hill, Margaret Simons, Sam Vincent, Chloe Hooper, James Button and Andrew Quilty. I’ve seen the thrill and pride that accompanies every win, even from our most celebrated writers.
It’s something I would also like to experience as a journalist. It is utterly shameful that the Walkley Foundation, which professes to hold organisational values of “integrity, trust, fairness, transparency and ethical conduct”, cannot see the hypocrisy of its position. Award-winning journalists should be able to hold these values themselves, but so many cannot.
Should the Walkley Foundation divest from its fossil fuel sponsors? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
