Publication
The Sydney Morning Herald
Year
2015
Category
Young Journalist of the Year Awards
Text based journalism
Overall Young Australian Journalist of the Year
McNeilage is the winner of the Print/Text Category and has been named the overall 2015 Walkley Young Australian Journalist of the Year.
In naming Amy McNeilage the Walkley Young Australian Journalist of the Year the Walkley Advisory Board wanted to make a special mention of her ability to not only follow her instinct but her determination to stick with the story and go deeper, a trait they feel is crucial for young journalists today.
Amy McNeilage (@AmyMcNeilage) is the deputy editor at Daily Life, Australia’s largest female-focused news and opinion site. Previously, she was the education reporter at the Sydney Morning Herald until February 2015. Amy was awarded the National Press Club’s 2015 Higher Education Journalist of the Year Award with her colleague Lisa Visentin for their work on the MyMaster investigation, which continues to unfold as universities revoke degrees from students involved.
Judges’ comments:
“Any journalist worth their salt, young or old, would have loved to have broken this story. Amy McNeilage’s investigation into foreign students buying essays from the MyMaster website exposed not only the cheating students but a fraud at the heart of some of our most esteemed institutions. It was a superb piece of journalism, narrowing in on a particular issue to highlight the much greater problem of universities trashing standards in the quest for foreign dollars.”