Simply recording a "splash of a conversation" and posting it online is not the type of podcasting that interests UOW Journalism Associate Professor Siobhan McHugh.
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"What we do is sophisticated, crafted storytelling that is to audio what Netflix is to the visual medium," she said of her award-winning team.
Wrong Skin, co-produced by Prof McHugh, was named Podcast of the Year at the recent 2019 Australian Podcast Awards.
She collaborated with a team from The Age including Richard Baker, Greg Muller, Tom McKendrick, Rachael Dexter and Tim Young, as consulting producer in the 10-part series.
The podcast about forbidden love under Aboriginal law set in outback Western Australia, also won the Investigative Journalism & True Crime Award at the nation's most prestigious podcasting awards night.
This success followed its win at the Melbourne Press Club Quills awards in March, where the judges called Wrong Skin "the best example of what podcasting can be for journalism".
Prof McHugh said working with Baker, the "driving force" behind the project, was rewarding.
"He has just taken to podcasting with such enthusiasm because he has identified that it allows him to tell a story in a different way," she said.
What we do is sophisticated, crafted storytelling that is to audio what Netflix is to the visual medium.
- Associate Professor Siobhan McHugh
"However he has also identified that he needs to collaborate with a team.
"The role I bring is understanding the crafting of audio stories and the nature of the audio medium.
"A good podcast takes a lot of time and a lot of expertise. I just think it is great that [Baker] obviously understands that the pay-off is worth it because the impact and the accessibility of it is so huge."
Prof McHugh added the team were thrilled to be recognised for Wrong Skin, which explores the unsolved, suspicious death of Julie Buck and the missing body of Richard Milgin.
"It's an unpalatable story in many ways. It's about blackfellas calling out other blackfellas for behaviour that is very unsavoury to say the very least," she said.
"It's a story that's nuanced, a sensitive one to tell.
"These communities are very close, these people are sometimes afraid to talk and there's a sense of people battening down the hatches and not wanting to talk to outsiders."
Prof McHugh said Wrong Skin could only have been told in the podcast medium - which was providing reporters with an outlet for long-form journalism, a way of humanising the news and giving audiences the deep, impactful stories they have been yearning for.
This is also the case for her next collaboration with Baker.
"It is an amazing story. I can't give away much but there is geopolitics, crime and a lot of drugs involved," she said.
Agron Latifi
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
