University part of winning Walkley Award for coverage of Indigenous Affairs

Friday, 29 November 2019

Share this story

The Killing Times, a collaboration between The Guardian Australia and the University of Newcastle’s Colonial Frontier Massacres research team has been awarded the 2019 Walkley Award for Coverage of Indigenous Affairs.

Professor Lyndall Ryan with the Colonial Frontier Massacre Map
Professor Lyndall Ryan with the Colonial Frontier Massacre Map (c) Rolla Films

The project has revealed harrowing details of the true extent of massacres on the colonial frontier of Australia. Around 97 per cent of people killed in these massacres were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The research is an important ‘truth telling’ project, and the research team, led by Professor Lyndall Ryan, are honoured to receive the recognition of a Walkley Award alongside The Guardian Australia, and hope it helps to put a spotlight on the truth, to bring about historical acceptance and in doing so contribute to a path towards reconciliation.

Stage three of the research was released earlier this month, by researchers from the School of Humanities and Social Science in the Faculty of Education and Arts, incorporating for the first time, sites of massacres in Western Australia, along with new sites in the Northern Territory, to provide a national picture of the extent of the violence.

The University would also like to congratulate Donna Page, Casual Academic in the School of Creative Industries, and Nick Bielby, winners of the 2019 Walkley Award for Coverage of Community and Regional Affairs for their Newcastle Herald investigation ‘Dirty Deeds’.

Related news