Year
2019
Category
Coverage of Indigenous Affairs
“The Killing Times” is a confronting, compelling and evolving digital series about a highly important chapter in our history. A collaboration between Guardian Australia and the University of Newcastle’s Colonial Frontier Massacres research team, the project tells the history of more than a century of armed conflict and resistance along the expanding colonial frontier.
It reveals more than 270 sites where more than six people were killed, using primary source material, strict methodology and painstaking research, as well as original reporting on places and people that has not been made public before. The stories of descendants from all sides were fundamental to the project, as was the development of a map, searchable by postcode, to show how close to home these incidents have occurred over time.
The collaboration is driven by the view that this information is essential to any process of truth-telling this country decides to undertake in whatever form that may take — on local, regional and national levels. While these stories will be familiar to academics/historians and Indigenous people, it is likely they are little known in wider society. The user-friendly interactive tool is clear and concise, providing a crucial resource that can be used to teach and inform Australians for years to come.
Judges’ comments:
“A timely work of national significance that will have lasting impact. The interrogation of massacre data has produced a number of stories and will continue to be a foundation for further stories. The work features forensic research and data journalism, and at its heart it is truth-telling. It’s the first time we’ve seen all this information in one place, with journalistic context pulling together the historical threads. Devastating but important.”
