The Australian War Memorial is in the news for reportedly retrospectively changing the rules of its Les Carlyon prize for military history. This resulted in it not being awarded to Walkley award-winning journalist Chris Masters’ book about disgraced special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith.
Flawed Hero: Truth, Lies and War Crimes details the evidence Roberts-Smith committed war crimes in Afghanistan. It describes the defamation proceedings brought by Roberts-Smith against Masters, fellow journalist Nick McKenzie and Nine Media.
Masters’ book had been chosen from a shortlist of six by an external judging panel. (The shortlist was first compiled by an internal panel of memorial employees.) Leaked correspondence from the Australian War Memorial suggests the governing council revived eligibility criteria from a few years earlier (when the prize was explicitly for emerging writers only), after Masters’ book had been chosen as the winner.
