Hedley Thomas

Hedley Thomas
NationalityAustralian
Occupation(s)Journalist and author
Known forWalkley Awards; including two Gold Walkleys
Notable work

Hedley Thomas is an Australian investigative journalist and author, who has won eight Walkley Awards, two of which are Gold Walkleys.[1]

Personal life

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Thomas is married and lives in Brisbane. He has two children.[2] In 2002 Thomas and his family were victims of a death threat and a drive-by shooting.[3][4]

Career

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Soon after completing high school, Thomas started his career as a newspaper copy boy for the Gold Coast Bulletin in 1984.[2]

After nine months as a copy boy he started a journalism cadetship at the Gold Coast Bulletin, then in 1988 moved to The Courier-Mail in Brisbane.[2][5] After a year, he moved to London as a foreign correspondent for News Limited Australia for two years.[citation needed] As a 22-year-old journalist there he covered historic events such as the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Romanian Revolution.[6]

Thomas returned to The Courier-Mail in late 1991, working there for 18 months.[2][5] Thomas then moved to become the News Editor at the Hong Kong Standard for six months, before moving to the South China Morning Post in late 1993.[2][5] There Thomas served in a variety of roles, including Senior Reporter, Deputy Features Editor, and Senior Writer.[5]

In 1999 Thomas returned to Brisbane and The Courier-Mail.[5]

In 2005 he won a Walkley Award for a series of articles on Bundaberg Director of surgery Jayant Patel, which he later used a base for the non-fiction book Sick to Death, published in 2007.[7] The book also won the Queensland Premiers Literary Award for "Literary Work Advancing Public Debate".[8]

In 2006 Thomas moved to the Brisbane bureau of The Australian,[5] and in 2007 won a Gold Walkley for a series highlighting the flawed police pursuit of Mohamed Haneef, an innocent doctor accused of being a terrorist.[9] After winning the award, Thomas left journalism in early 2008[10] to work in the resources sector, with a role in communications, investor and government relations.[11]

He returned to journalism and The Australian around 2010,[5] notably covering aspects of the AWU affair during 2012.[12]

Thomas won a second Gold Walkley in 2018, along with producer Slade Gibson, for podcast series The Teacher's Pet, a 14-episode investigation of the unsolved disappearance of Sydney mother Lynette Dawson in 1982. As of December 2018, the podcast series was downloaded 28 million times, and was the only Australian podcast to hit the number one spot in the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand.[13][14] As a result of its success, the investigative depth of the show was also criticised as potentially complicating, or compromising, witness testimony and ongoing police investigations.[15][16] In 2022, following a guilty verdict in the murder trial of Dawson's former husband, Chris Dawson, Thomas received the Sir Keith Murdoch Award for his work on the podcast series.[17] Two follow-up series, called The Teacher's Trial and The Teacher's Accuser were aired 2022-2023.[18]

Since the success of The Teacher's Pet, Thomas has hosted (and regularly appeared in) a number of other podcasts[19] including The Night Driver (2020);[20] Shandee's Story and Shandee's Legacy (2021-2023).[21] In February 2022, revelations from Shandee's Story prompted the coronial inquest into her disappearance to reopen[22] alongside a wider inquiry into Queensland's state-run forensics lab.[23]

He was inducted into the Melbourne Press Club’s Media Hall of Fame in November 2018.[24]

Awards

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Awards include:

  • 1999 Walkley for Best Investigative Writing (with Paul Whittaker) for exposing the "Net Bet affair"[2][25]
  • 2003 Walkley for Best Print Feature, "Court in Crisis" on Di Fingleton, jailed Chief Magistrate of Queensland[26]
  • 2005 Walkley for Best Print News story, "Exposing a Sick System" regarding Dr Jayant Patel, Bundaberg Director of Surgery[27]
  • 2005 Sir Keith Murdoch Award, for the Patel story[5]
  • 2007 Walkley for Best Print New story, for the Mohamed Haneef story[28] and Gold Walkey
  • 2012 Queensland Clarion Award for Queensland Journalist of the Year for highlighting evidence overlooked by the judicial inquiry into the operation of the Wivenhoe Dam during the 2011 Queensland floods[29]
  • 2012 received an Honorary Doctorate of Journalism from John Henningham's Jschool School of Journalism in Brisbane[30]
  • 2018 Gold Walkley for The Teachers Pet podcast[13]
  • 2022 Sir Keith Murdoch Award for The Teachers Pet podcast[17]

Selected published works

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  • Thomas, Hedley (2007). Sick to death: a manipulative surgeon and a health system in crisis – a disaster waiting to happen. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-1-74114-881-7.

References

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  1. ^ Fletcher, Clare (18 December 2018). "Spotlight on: Hedley Thomas". Medium. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Paula Doneman; Amanda Watt (25 October 2002). "Stalker shoots at journo". The Courier-Mail. p. 1.
  3. ^ "Journalist relocated after shots fired at home". The Sydney Morning Herald. 24 October 2002. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  4. ^ "Journalist shaken after attack on home". The Age. 25 October 2002. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h "Hedley Thomas". The Australian. Archived from the original on 3 September 2012. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
  6. ^ "Sick to death". Allen and Unwin. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  7. ^ "Sick to Death- Hedley Thomas". Kirkus Reviews. 20 May 2010. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  8. ^ "Queensland Premier's Literary Award". Queensland Literary Awards. Archived from the original on 24 July 2008. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  9. ^ "Past Gold Walkley award winners". SBS. 20 November 2009. Archived from the original on 11 September 2012. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
  10. ^ "Hedley Thomas: Quitting at the top of his game". SBS News. 26 February 2015. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
  11. ^ Knott, Matthew. "Journalists & Editors, no. 6: Hedley Thomas". The Power Index. Crikey.com.au. Archived from the original on 20 July 2014. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  12. ^ "Scandal-mongering or good reporting?". ABC Media Watch. 27 August 2012. Retrieved 14 January 2017.
  13. ^ a b Hedley Thomas, Slade Gibson win Gold Walkley for true crime podcast, ABC News Online, 23 November 2018
  14. ^ Cockburn, Paige; Sas, Nick (6 December 2018). "The power of the podcast — in Lynette Dawson's case was it a help or hindrance?". ABC News. Retrieved 3 January 2019.
  15. ^ Cockburn, Paige; Sas, Nick (6 December 2018). "The power of the podcast — in Lynette Dawson's case was it a help or hindrance?". ABC News. Archived from the original on 29 December 2018. Retrieved 3 January 2019.
  16. ^ "Magistrate says Teacher's Pet podcast so popular it could prejudice Chris Dawson murder trial". ABC News. 8 August 2019. Retrieved 6 September 2022.
  17. ^ a b "News Awards: Lachlan Murdoch presents trophies to Herald Sun & Australian journalists". Media Week. 8 November 2022. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  18. ^ "The Teacher's Trial on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. 19 December 2023. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  19. ^ "Hedley Thomas". Podchaser. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  20. ^ "The Night Driver on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. 10 November 2023. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  21. ^ "Shandee's Story on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. 19 December 2023. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  22. ^ "Coroner reopens inquiry into Shandee Blackburn's murder". ABC News. 9 February 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  23. ^ "Thousands of serious crime and sexual assault cases to be reviewed in Queensland forensic lab inquiry". ABC News. 4 October 2023. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
  24. ^ Mediaweek (19 November 2018). "More media greats inducted into Australian Media Hall of Fame". Mediaweek. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  25. ^ Kirkpatrick, Rod (2000). "News media chronicle, July 1999 to June 2000" (PDF). Australian Studies in Journalism. 9: 168. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
  26. ^ "Walkley Foundation – Past winners". The Walkley Foundation. Archived from the original on 5 February 2013. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  27. ^ "Hedley Thomas". The Walkley Foundation. Archived from the original on 5 February 2013. Retrieved 19 September 2012.
  28. ^ "Haneef story gets Thomas a Gold Walkley". Sydney Morning Herald. 29 November 2007. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
  29. ^ "2012 Queensland Clarion Awards". clarions.org. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
  30. ^ "Fairfax in talks". The Australian. 22 October 2012.
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