Hedley Thomas

Australian journalist

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 seven Walkley Awards, two of which are Gold Walkleys.[1]

Personal life

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

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[update], 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

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

  • 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

  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.

External links

  • Hall of Fame Biography
  • Interview with Thomas