Illawarra Mercury journalist Shannon Tonkin has been nominated for a prestigious Walkley Award.
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The 63rd annual Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism were announced on Thursday night at simultaneous events in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and Ms Tonkin was named as a finalist for the Best Coverage of Regional and Community Affairs.
Ms Tonkin was recognised for her work n the Illawarra Mercury’s State of Neglect campaign, which has called for increased penalties for serious cases of child neglect in NSW.
The nomination comes after Mercury photographer Sylvia Liber was already named a dual Walkley winner last week, picking up the 2018 Nikon-Walkley Community/Regional Prize and the 2018 Nikon-Walkley Portrait Prize for photography.
Already this year, Ms Tonkin was honoured with the Chris Watson Award for Outstanding Regional Newspaper Reporting category in the prestigious Kennedy Award for Excellence in Journalism.
The “State of Neglect” campaign began after Tonkin revealed a shocking case of child neglect involving an Illawarra mother.
It was a case described by a Wollongong magistrate as one of the worst he’d ever seen.
The coverage has since prompted a review of NSW child neglect laws. This state is the only jurisdiction in Australia where offenders can’t be sent to jail.
Walkley Award winners will be announced at a gala dinner on Thursday November 22 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.