By GARRY HOWE
THE ever-evolving media landscape is in good hands if the calibre of grant recipients in the 2016 Herb Thomas Memorial Trust Awards is any indication, Star News Group managing director Paul Thomas told guests at last week’s presentation dinner.
Responding on behalf of his family, Mr Thomas said the five awardees not only spoke and presented themselves well, but displayed a depth of talent across all media platforms.
He told the gathering on Wednesday 4 May that the media industry was becoming more diverse every day and journalists needed to be able to adapt to the many mediums people now used to digest their news.
The award recipients were RMIT graphic design student Maria Vinogradova, RMIT journalism graduate Mark Kearney, and Monash University journalism graduates Anna Harcourt, Nardine Groch and Sally Hayles.
The trustees Roger Hall, George Blenkhorn, Gary Evans, Terry Williams and Mike Tyler were joined by Paul’s father Ian interviewing the 10 candidates.
They also reflected on the high standard this year.
Ms Vinogradova grew up in Russia with a passion for music and the arts. She attended music college and university in Russia and decided on a change of career when she moved to Australia.
She enrolled in a Certificate IV in Design at RMIT and has not looked back.
“In Australia I saw that it is never too late to change your career and try something new, or to dare to pursue one’s dreams,” she said.
Ms Vinogradova intends to use the grant money to upgrade her computer to enable her to complete more complex work and to participate in a range of workshops and conferences to hone her skills.
She would eventually like to return to teaching to pass on her design skills to a younger generation of students.
Mr Kearney also had a career change, opting to study journalism at RMIT after six years teaching in schools across Melbourne and in London.
Late last year he joined the newsroom at the Bendigo Advertiser and loves the connection with the community and social responsibility that the job brings.
“It really satisfies me in a way my previous career did not,” he said.
“I love that every day is different and I love that I can bring my interests and expertise into the workplace, finding stories that relate to education, social justice and the arts,” he said.
He said he would split the grant money between buying a camera and sound recording equipment – the latter to pursue his passion for longer form reporting, particularly podcasting.
For Ms Harcourt, the grant money fulfils a more basic requirement – buying groceries and paying the rent.
The New Zealander knows how to keep busy, supplementing her undergraduate degree in Monash University’s School of Media Film and Journalism with countless internships. In her limited spare time, she also helped conceive an online dating podcast called It’s A Match.
Ms Harcourt said there was a three-month stint where she did not have a day off and she was not paid for the bulk of that time.
“The reality of the journalism industry is that it is impossible to get a job without multiple internships under your belt,” she explained.
“I don’t say that as a complaint… the experience and exposure I get through these internships is invaluable.”
She loves broadcast journalism and aims to land a job as a television reporter within a year.
Ms Groch – a post graduate student at Monash’s School of Media Film and Journalism – describes herself as an environmental journalist and videographer, who has already travelled the world to pursue her passion.
She spent her final semester of a double masters’ degree in Journalism and Environmental Sustainability as an accredited freelance journalist at the COP21 climate change conference in Paris, where she rubbed shoulders not only with 3000 colleagues from around the world but also with the likes of US president Barack Obama.
“I took a photo of Barack Obama with the same lens I used to take a photo of a polar bear,” she told guests at the trust dinner.
Ms Groch has supplemented her studies by working as a wildlife photographer with Zoos Victoria for the past seven years.
She would like to use the trust money to study a Masters of Wildlife Filmmaking at the University of the West of England in Bristol where she would be mentored by top producers from the BBC’s Natural History Unit.
Ms Hales, a third year Batchelor of Journalism student at Monash Caulfield, will also now fulfil overseas ambitions with the trust grant.
She would like to apply for a journalism unit that involves travelling to Cambodia to join a study tour with the Engineers Without Borders group.
“This would allow me to gain international in-the-field experience using video equipment and expand my knowledge of cross-cultural reporting,” she said.
“This would be invaluable for my career.”
Ms Hales had a background in youth social work, which sparked her interest in journalism.
“I realised I wanted to be able to tell people’s stories and investigate issues that were impacting on the people around me and the global community,” she said.
