Imprisoned whistleblower David McBride spoke to the Walkley Awards ceremony, Australia’s Pulitzers, in a nationally-televised address that was a challenge to the authorities who jailed him. Consortium News was there.
Imprisoned whistleblower David McBride speaking from jail to Walkley Awards ceremony on Tuesday. (Cathy Vogan still from Walkley feed)
David McBride, a former military lawyer deployed to Afghanistan, is in prison for exposing Australian war crimes there to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which broadcast last night’s Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism event. Here is our video report (17 min) from CN Live! producer Cathy Vogan who attended the event in Sydney for Consortium News.
Australian whistleblower Richard Boyle also spoke. Walkley Foundation Chair Adele Ferguson acknowledged that the suffering of these men lay behind great journalism and the judging board chair, Sally Neighbour, called on Australia’s Attorney General Mark Dreyfus to deliver on proper whistleblower protection, as he has promised.
Journalist Andrew Fowler, a frequent guest on CN Live!, won a Walkley for his new book Nuked: The Submarine Fiasco that Sank Australia’s Sovereignty, about the controversial Australian submarine deal with the U.S. and U.K.
At the event, Karen Percy, federal president of the media section of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), Australia’s journalist union, celebrated the release from prison this summer of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, and told the crowd of several hundred journalists it was time to stand together against tyrannical forces that would define and suppress journalism. (Video 4 min.)
At an event for McBride earlier this month in Brisbane, John Shipton, Assange’s father, blasted U.S. policy in Afghanistan while praising McBride for exposing Australian war crimes.
Cathy Vogan was there too and filed this (25 min) video report:
Cathy Vogan is a filmmaker and executive producer of CN Live!